Restructuring The FedEx Cup Playoffs

Among the many gripes with the PGA Tour, critics have directed a lot of their indignation toward the structure of the FedEx Cup Playoffs. And with good reason.

It was easy to look at the final pairing and feel some form of vindication that two of the game’s best golfers—Rory McIlroy, the unofficial spokesman for the Tour this season, and Scottie Scheffler, a rising superstar—were duking it out on Sunday.

But despite the drama unfolding with shots worth $11.5 million, the more skeptical observers could take issue with the head start that Scheffler received for finishing atop the FedEx Cup standings.

Now, the PGA Tour’s quite reasonable motivation for this system is that Scottie Scheffler had a great season and deserved some acknowledgment of that feat. He won three Tour events, as well as a green jacket. He received a substantial bonus for winning the most points during the regular season, but the real prize was the ten-stroke start at the Tour Championship.

The FedEx Cup exists as a hybrid playoff structure, unlike anything sports fans are accustomed to.

On one end of the spectrum, you have a system like the English Premier League (EPL), where there are no playoffs and the team with the most points accumulated throughout the season wins the title.

On the other, you have college basketball, with a large one-and-done playoff structure that leads to quite a bit of variance in its champions.

The FedEx Cup Playoffs use two tournaments (FedEx St. Jude Championship and BMW Championship) to dole out additional points at the end of the season.

This determines qualification for the Tour Championship, but it goes beyond what playoffs are intended to do in other sports (that is, whittle down the field to an eventual champion) and determines placement by rewarding strokes, which heavily advantages golfers at the top.

The argument for this system makes sense. But it’s the equivalent of rewarding the best NFC team a touchdown to begin each playoff game. It’d be like Serena Williams starting matches with bonus points when she was the number one ranked player in the world.

No other sport runs their playoffs or championships in this way. Once a team or a player qualifies, they start from an even playing field.

Given all this, let’s imagine that the PGA Tour ridded itself of its peculiar rules and structure. Which golfers over the FedEx Cup Playoffs actually performed best?

Taking a look at strokes gained across the past three weeks, the real winner was Sungjae Im (18.5 strokes gained), finishing a full two strokes ahead of Sepp Straka (16.5 strokes gained). Rory McIlroy would’ve been ranked third (15.06 strokes gained), after missing the cut at the FedEx St. Jude Championship.

The 10 strokes to start the Tour Championship proved crucial to Scottie Scheffler. His second-place finish was well above his actual ranking of eleventh in strokes gained, having lost a staggering nine full strokes with his putter.

All this to say, while the final round of the Tour Championship provided its own storylines and drama, it ultimately felt somewhat manufactured or artificial given the boost players receive for their performances across the season.

The PGA would benefit from changes to this system, preferably in favor of a more honest playoff structure that rewards performance in the moment. This would inevitably give the tournament the feeling of another Major, and not some inevitable coronation of the season points leader.