The Tour Championship is going to look a bit different this fall.
Instead of one golfer having a massive advantage over the rest of the field at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, everybody is going to start from the same place.
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The PGA Tour announced on Tuesday night that it had eliminated the starting strokes format for its season-ending Tour Championship. Instead, the event will simply be a 72-hole stroke-play event like every other tournament on Tour. Then, whoever wins the tournament will win the FedEx Cup.
The Tour also said that it will keep the field size for the Tour Championship at just 30 golfers. The tournament is the third of three FedEx Cup Playoffs events, which shrink in field size every step of the way. The FedEx St. Jude Championship will include the top 70 golfers in the FedEx Cup standings, and then the top 50 will make it to the BMW Championship the following week.
The Tour is also planning to make East Lake more difficult.
“Our Fan Forward initiative has helped us evaluate each part of the PGA TOUR season and today’s announcement is an important first step in the evolution of our postseason,” PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan said in a statement. “The Player Advisory Council led a thorough process to respond to what our fans are asking for: The most competitive golf in the world, played for the highest stakes, in the most straightforward and engaging format.”
Top-ranked Scottie Scheffler won the FedEx Cup last season for the first time, though he had entered the Tour Championship as the No. 1 player in the past three seasons — which gave him a two-stroke advantage and allowed him to start at 10-under on Thursday instead of at even par. The second place golfer in the standings then started at 8-under, and so on until the last group of golfers who made it into the field open the tournament at even par.
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The idea behind the starting strokes format was to reward golfers like Scheffler, who dominated all season long. He had seven total wins last season, including at the Masters and The Players Championship. That way, if he has a bad week at the Tour Championship, he’s still in a position to claim the season-long title.
However that format, which was first introduced in 2019, hasn’t always been a hit with fans. Now, Scheffler said, the final event is going to be much simpler.
“We want the Tour Championship to be the hardest tournament to qualify for and the FedEx Cup trophy the most difficult to win,” Scheffler said in a statement. “Shifting the Tour Championship to a more straight-up format with a tougher course setup makes it easier for fans to follow and provides a more challenging test for players – which brings out the best competition.”
Scheffler, who is fresh off his win earlier this month at the PGA Championship, is in the field this week at the Memorial Tournament. The FedEx Cup Playoffs will start on Aug. 7 with the FedEx St. Jude Championship in Memphis. The Tour Championship is scheduled to start two weeks later on Aug. 21.
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