It's Time to Change The FedEx Cup

View From The Fairway by Derek Clements

Let me say straight away that I love the Tour Championship. Those of us who witnessed the extraordinary scenes when Tiger Woods won back in 2018 will never forget the crowds swarming onto the 18th fairway as he completed his victory march.

But it is patently ridiculous that an entire season’s work comes down to three events - the FedEx St Jude, the BMW Championship and the Tour Championship.

It came as no surprise to me to hear Scottie Scheffler criticise the format. Does anybody out there actually understand how it works?

Scheffler has won six times on the PGA Tour in 2024, including a major, and he threw in an Olympic gold medal for good measure - in sensational fashion.

He is the world’s best player by a distance but these final three events of what has been a memorable year are so heavily weighted that there is a chance he could miss out on being crowned FedEx Cup champion.

How can that possibly be right? I understand the desire for some sort of all-singing, all-dancing climax, and the tour has played about with various formats. I just don’t think that this is the right one.

The world’s best golfer called the format "silly." He said: "It's quoted as the season-long race, but at the end of the day it really all comes down to East Lake. I talked about it the past few years. I think it's silly. You can't call it a season-long race and have it come down to one tournament.

"Hypothetically, we get to East Lake and my neck flares up and it doesn't heal the way it did at the Players. I finish 30th in the FedEx Cup because I had to withdraw from the last tournament? Is that really the season-long race? No. It is what it is."

How can it possibly be right that Viktor Hovland leapt from 57th place in the standings to 16th on the basis of a runner-up finish at the FedEx St Jude? The reason, of course, was because of the ridiculous amount of money on offer, and the points that came with it.

Scheffler and Xander Schauffele have been the outstanding players of the year and I cannot possibly be the only one who would want to see them going head to head on level terms at East Lake. As things have worked out Scheffler will take a two-stroke advantage over Schauffele into the final event, even though Scheffler struggled at the BMW Championship.

I like the idea of these three final tournaments, reducing the fields from 70 to 50 to 30. But I hate the fact that when they tee it off at East Lake the players do not do so on level terms. It essentially means that if somebody has a stinker of a week at the Tour Championship they have no chance whatsoever of finishing the year on top of the pile.

I love the way the Race to Dubai works. When they play at the season-ending DP World Tour Championship, everybody in the field knows exactly what they have to achieve in order to finish the season as Europe’s number one. And there are no gimmicks. At East Lake, the man who leads the rankings starts the week 10 shots ahead of the man in 30th place.

Of course, Americans love to contrive their sport. They have a baseball tournament called the World Series that is restricted to teams from the USA.

And while I understand that the PGA Tour wants to create some excitement, surely that could be achieved by all 30 players starting off on the same mark. The man who is crowned FedEx Cup champion should be the man who wins the most money over the course of a full season, not based on his performance over three weeks.

Not everybody agrees, of course. 

(Image Credit: Kevin Diss Photography)

Rory McIlroy, who had a week to forget at the St Jude, is a three-time FedEx Cup winner, and he said: "I love this format because if it wasn't this format, then none of us would have a chance against Scottie because he's so far ahead. Is it the fairest reflection of who's been the best player of the year? Probably not. But I think at this point we're not in for totally fair; we're in for entertainment and for trying to put on the best product we possibly can."

And that is precisely my point - there is no way under the sun that this can possibly be classed as the best product. It is time for a rethink.