Rory McIlroy is no stranger to putting the golfing world on alert with comments he has made, with the Northern Irishman certainly not afraid to be honest when he speaks to the media.
Rory McIlroy was surely the most outspoken critic on the PGA Tour of LIV Golf when the breakaway league began. Meanwhile, he will often provide very thorough assessments of the state of his own game.
McIlroy has already suggested that he plans to skip a number of events next year, including the St. Jude Championship – the first event of the FedEx Cup play-offs. The Northern Irishman had a nightmare week in Memphis this year – with only Max Homa finishing below him – but barely fell in the overall standings.
Some think alarm bells will be ringing at the PGA Tour following McIlroy’s comments. And it seems that others believe that McIlroy’s comments need to force the tour to make a change if they are going to ensure that all of their best players keep coming to each of the play-off events.
PGA Tour urged to introduce penalties as Rory McIlroy opens up on his plans for 2025
Speaking on Golf Today, Taylor Zarzour suggested that he can understand McIlroy’s thinking, but he thinks that sitting it out should not be an option.
“There is a fundamental issue when you take weeks off in the play-offs. And by the way, if I were Rory McIlroy, after how he played in Memphis this past year, knowing that he was in the top 10 in the FedEx Cup standings and that his position wasn’t going to change almost at all by playing in Memphis, it completely makes sense that he would take the tournament off in the current structure,” he said.
“But to your point, there has to be some sort of penalty for the best players to miss a play-off event. If they’re going to be two, three, four; however many play-off events there are going to be, you need those people to play in those events.”
Scottie Scheffler has already expressed frustration with current FedEx Cup play-off format
It definitely does appear that the play-off structure does not work as well as the PGA Tour would like. They have tried a number of systems down the years, with the current format seeing the player at the top of the standings start The Tour Championship with at least a two-shot head start over the rest of the field.
Scottie Scheffler expressed his dislike for the play-off system ahead of this year’s Tour Championship. Of course, the idea of anyone else winning the FedEx Cup seemed ridiculous given the year the world number one has had.
Perhaps the fairest system which also provides some drama would involve the season-long Order of Merit concluding ahead of the play-offs, with the St. Jude Championship, BMW Championship and Tour Championship subsequently acting as an additional run for the best of the best.
If everyone started the first play-off event at zero with the sole intention of advancing to the next week, then there would be no option for someone like McIlroy to miss the event.
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