by The Tour Championship is both the most scrutinized and the most lucrative golf tournament in the world. While it may not be the best or most engaging event (we’ll dive into that later), its importance is undeniable. Qualifying for the Tour Championship comes with valuable perks like spots in the Masters and U.S. Open, and it also serves as the grand finale of the PGA Tour season.
This week's Tour Championship has the biggest purse of any golf tournament ever played.
The payouts …
1st: $25M
2nd: $12.5M
3rd: $7.5M
4th: $6M
5th: $5M
6th: $3.5M
7th: $2.8M
8th: $2.3M
9th: $2M
10th: $1.8M
11th: $1.1M
12th: $1M
13th-30th: Between $550K-$975K— Kyle Porter (@KylePorterCBS) August 26, 2024
If the season-ending championship isn’t special, it diminishes the value of each event leading up to it. Conversely, if the Tour Championship is prestigious, it elevates everything that came before. Week 9 of the NFL season only matters if the Super Bowl matters.
In today’s newsletter, I’ll aim to provide a balanced assessment of where the PGA Tour has succeeded with this tournament and where it continues to fail. I want to emphasize that making fun of the PGA Tour and critiquing this tournament isn’t intended to make PGA Tour leadership look like fools. Jay Monahan doesn’t really need help with that. The goal is to shine a light on how much better professional golf could be if those in power were more imaginative and thoughtful about shaping the sport’s future.
The Field
Ahead of the 2024 season, the PGA Tour revised the distribution of FedEx Cup points at each tournament, better aligning the points with field strength.
To illustrate the shortcomings of the previous system, consider Emiliano Grillo’s 2022-23 season. His overall season-long performance was mediocre, but a T-5 finish at the Mexico Open and a win at the Charles Schwab narrowly secured his spot at East Lake. While Grillo’s performances in Mexico and Fort Worth were solid, those events had much weaker fields compared to signature events and majors. Grillo earned 100 points for his T-5 in Mexico, more than the 91 points Harris English received for his T-8 at the U.S. Open. Under the 2024 changes, an eighth-place finish in the U.S. Open now earns 225 points, more than the 110 points for a fifth-place finish in Mexico. The change better reflects the quality of each performance.
The PGA Tour deserves credit for tweaking the points system to better reflect performance. A flawed points system not only hinders the best players from reaching East Lake but also creates poor incentives. It encourages players to chase easy points in weaker fields, diluting the standings. The counterargument is that without such incentives, top players might skip non-signature events altogether. For instance, if Rory McIlroy couldn’t earn 400 FedEx Cup points for winning the Zurich Classic this year, he might not have played. His presence in New Orleans adds value to the tour. This is the delicate balance the Tour must navigate.
This year’s improved points system has significantly enhanced the competitive nature of the PGA Tour, as evidenced by the list of players teeing it up at East Lake this week. This is a positive development.
The Format
The format is an abomination. Before any shots were hit on Thursday, Scottie Scheffler led the field at ten under par, two shots clear of Xander Schauffele and ten shots ahead of the bottom of the leaderboard. After Thursday, Scheffler leads by seven strokes. We’re set up for a potential blowout and another inevitable ratings drop should Scottie coast to a comfortable victory. That outcome is a distinct possibility when you give the best player in the world a lead, and it’s an embarrassment when that outcome materializes. The Tour deserves that outcome for trotting out this unserious format for yet another year. And for sending out this tweet, which is an all-timer.
Scottie Scheffler cards a 6-under 65 and holds a seven-stroke lead after the first round of the TOUR Championship.
Scheffler is the first player to hold a lead of seven strokes or more after 18 holes of a TOUR event on record (1983-present).
— PGA TOUR Communications (@PGATOURComms) August 29, 2024
A staggered start might make sense to those who can’t decide whether the Tour Championship should serve as the finale of the season-long race or a true playoff, but it’s illogical to those who believe it should commit fully to one of the two. Most importantly, there’s a strong case to be made that any competition where players or teams don’t start on equal footing isn’t even a real competition. The current Tour Championship format might achieve some of its goals, like shoveling a bunch of cash into top players’ mouths, but if it isn’t even a true competition, it’s strayed far from where it should be.
Alternative formats would elevate the PGA Tour product.
Below are two formats that would serve as true playoffs, facilitating much more competition and excitement than the current format. Check out the potential matchups we’d get to watch this weekend. (Hat tip to Fried Egg Golf’s Matt Rouches for the graphics.)
Option A: 12-Player Match Play Bracket (Top Four Seeds Get a First-Round Bye)
This format would be sweet! It provides an advantage to the top four seeds, similar to home-field advantage in other sports, without compromising the essence of true golf competition by manipulating the scoreboard. No matter how well Scottie plays in his first match, he’s tied standing on the first tee of his second match. That’s how real playoffs work.
Critics may argue that match play creates a poor television product, especially if only one meaningful match is on the course on Sunday afternoon. The solution? Play out every match for positioning. Finishing seventh in the season-ending standings would finally mean something.
Option B: 16-Player Seeded Pool System, 36-Hole Stroke Play into a 4-Player Match Play Bracket
Each format has its own benefits. I prefer Option A but would support either of these formats or other similar formats that foster fierce head-to-head competition. Would the best player always win under these formats? No, but that isn’t a reason to avoid them. March Madness is one of the most successful playoff formats in all of sports. Yet the best team doesn’t always win.
Internal O.B.
In other Tour Championship news, the PGA Tour decided to designate certain areas of the newly-renovated East Lake as internal out of bounds after the potential of playing down the 10th hole on 18 came up during Scottie Scheffler’s press conference. Some may argue that internal OB is a sign of lazy or careless design; that is, if a golfer can exploit a hole by playing down another fairway, it exposes design flaws.
Would be something to watch the PGA Tour "season" and the $25 million come down to two guys playing up different fairways on the last hole… pic.twitter.com/GwdXdDMEHW
— Brendan Porath (@BrendanPorath) August 28, 2024
I’ll take a different view. East Lake was built on a constrained piece of land in Atlanta more than 100 years ago. The game has changed drastically since then. Architects from the early 1900s didn’t need to consider the golf ball flying an extra mile and with towering height and high spin. If internal OB is necessary to preserve historic venues (oh, and improve pace of play), I take no issue with that. What I do take issue with, however, is the PGA Tour’s continued resistance to sensible equipment regulations. These issues are related!
The Creator Classic
More than 24 hours removed from the Creator Classic – a Wednesday afternoon competition at East Lake featuring content creators – I still don’t understand what I watched. Most of the people I’ve talked to with similar golf interests feel similarly. But I honestly don’t know if that matters.
Throughout the back half of the stream, live viewership consistently exceeded 100,000, and the YouTube video has amassed over 1,000,000 views in 24 hours. Whether this translates into business value for the PGA Tour remains to be seen, but the viewership numbers are impressive. YouTube golf is a well worth tapping into. The fact that traditional golf viewers might not grasp the appeal of watching YouTubers shoot 38 at East Lake might just be beside the point.
In case you’re curious about the results, Luke Kwon won. Active PGA Tour member Wesley Bryan did not.
This piece originally appeared in the Fried Egg Golf newsletter. Subscribe for free and receive golf news and insight every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
