You would think that Rory McIlroy is one of 29 players who sees a huge benefit in the Tour Championship doing away with starting strokes ahead of this year’s event at East Lake.
The PGA Tour is still working to find the ideal formula for the FedEx Cup playoffs. From 2019, the Tour Championship saw the field start on various scores between 10 under par and level par based on their position in the FedEx Cup standings heading to Atlanta.
The 2024 Tour Championship illustrated the big problem with the format.
Had the PGA Tour handed Scottie Scheffler a lead reflective of his dominance over the year, then he would have begun the week much further ahead than just two shots. However, had that been the case, the season finale would have been even more underwhelming than it proved to be.
Rory McIlroy comments on the Tour Championship format
This year’s Tour Championship will see all 30 players start on level par. It appears to be a temporary change, with the decision coming midway through this season.
There is a big question mark hanging over what the long-term format will prove to be. In fact, Rory McIlroy is one of those in the dark over the event’s future.
Speaking ahead of this week’s tournament, McIlroy admitted that he was not as unhappy with the previous format as others seemed to be.
“I’m maybe part of the minority. I didn’t hate the starting strokes. I thought that the player that played the best during the course of the season should have had an advantage coming in here. But the majority of people just didn’t like the starting strokes. Whether it were players or fans – I was on the PAC when we were trying to go through that, and really it was just a way to try to simplify the advantage that the top players were going to get over the course of the week instead of Steve Sands doing calculations on a white board,” he said.
“But you could also argue if it was starting strokes this week, Scottie with a two-shot lead, it probably isn’t enough considering what he’s done this year and the lead that he has in the FedExCup going into this week.
“Look, there was a lot of other stuff on the table. Match play was on the table, and that got canned for this year. That might be brought back up in the conversation for next year or the year after.
“I think it’s just hard for the players to reconcile that we play stroke play for every week of the year but then the season-ending tournament is going to be decided by match play. I think it was just hard for the players to get their heads around that.
“I don’t know, maybe that will be on the table again, who knows. Yeah, look, it’s a 72-hole stroke-play event, and that’s what we play week in and week out. That’s what’s going to determine the winner.
“I don’t know if it’s the best format, but it’s the one that we have for this week.”
The history Rory McIlroy has made in the FedEx Cup
Perhaps it should not actually come as a huge surprise that McIlroy was not pushing for the starting strokes to be scrapped.
The Northern Irishman is the most successful player in FedEx Cup history, having won the title on three occasions. Tiger Woods is the only other player to have won more than one FedEx Cup.
And two of McIlroy’s victories came in the starting strokes era. He won in 2019 before triumphing again three years later.
Perhaps if they had persisted with the format for a lot longer, there would have eventually been an event which saw the player on level par go on and win. But realistically, this week’s tournament should be at least a little more exciting because everyone in the field gets a clean slate.
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