There is still an ongoing power struggle between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour, but Scottie Scheffler has highlighted a big mistake that the Saudi-backed golf league have made ahead of their season finale in Indianapolis.
There are still ongoing talks between LIV and the PGA Tour regarding a potential merger, but that seems a long way off right now.
LIV Golf Indianapolis is the final individual event of their season, with the Team Championship taking place next week in Michigan, while Scheffler and his fellow PGA Tour players still have two events remaining before the FedEx Cup is finalized.
Jon Rahm is currently sitting 12 points adrift of the leader in the standings – Joaquin Niemann, so the Spaniard needs to finish in solo seventh at the very worst if he is to have any chance of catching the Chilean.
However, he will most likely have to win in order to leap-frog the dominant 26-year-old LIV star.
LIV then have one final event next week to decide the Team Championship. From the outside looking in, it does seem rather difficult for everyday fans to understand the format and points system.
Even a man with Scheffler’s knowledge on the game has been left scratching his head regarding LIV’s season finale.
Scottie Scheffler makes a criticism of LIV Golf
The world number one has always remained steadfast in his opinion of the breakaway golf league.
Scheffler recently told reporters to ask LIV golfers about the current divide, because it was them who upped sticks and left the PGA Tour, causing the issue in the first place.
However, it’s not like he doesn’t appreciate the quality of golf on LIV. It seems like he actually tried to educate himself about the Saudi-backed outfit’s setup as well.
When speaking to the press after his first round at the BMW Championship, Scheffler was asked what winning the FedEx Cup would mean to him, before he went off on a tangent about LIV.
He said: “In order to win the FedExCup, you have to be one of the 30 best players for the entire year, and you’ve got to show up at East Lake and have a great tournament. I think when you look at our sport, most of it is competed over four days, and you’ve got four days to go out and win the FedExCup.“
The world number one was then asked if the Player of the Year award should be completely separate thing from winning the FedEx Cup (which it is).
He replied: “Well, I think they’re two different things. All it is is you’re trying to strike a balance between rewarding great play throughout the regular season and rewarding great play in the playoffs. In order to win the FedExCup, you have to put together a great body of work. For you to qualify for the TOUR Championship, especially without winning a tournament, means you had a great, consistent year.
“That’s your body of work. Playing consistent golf out here and making it to the TOUR Championship without winning a golf tournament is pretty difficult. You look at — I’m not going to name names, Doug, but you look at seasons like some players have without winning and making it to the FedExCup final, that’s a really good year.
“I think it’s extremely hard to win out here on TOUR, and I think a lot of times the media is always looking for something where we’re looking for a perfect finish to the year. Look at what LIV is doing with their final tournament. I tried to read about it the other day; I still can’t figure out what they’re trying to do with the final tournament. It’s not easy to figure out a true season-long race, and I think when you’re looking for an interesting finish to the year, I think we’ve got it down pretty good where you have 25, 30 weeks to prove yourself to get into the TOUR Championship and then it’s game on.“
Those comments are interesting from Scheffler.
While the LIV Golf points system may be difficult to follow for the casual fan, it could actually be argued that their system is a better one than the PGA Tour’s.
In fairness to LIV, their system has ensured that everything is still to play for ahead of the final individual event of the season.
PGA Tour haven’t got FedEx Cup Playoff format right despite what Scheffler says
Scheffler may be insistent that the route taken by the PGA Tour concerning having the Tour Championship as pretty much a standalone event is the correct one.
However, it does seem like the playoffs end in somewhat of a damp squib most years.
One idea to change all of that would be to change the format of the playoffs to match-play.
The cut-off for the FedEx St Jude Championship would have to be 64 players, before a couple of rounds would leave 16 remaining for the BMW Championship. Two rounds there would then leave the semi-finals for the Tour Championship at East Lake.
Can you imagine the excitement then with two match-play games on the Saturday before the FedEx Cup finale on the Sunday – 18 holes of match-play between two players vying for the trophy.
Whatever your thoughts are on match-play as a format, it would surely be a whole lot more exciting than the current system.
The other issue is that by taking away starting strokes at the Tour Championship, the PGA Tour left the door open for players like Rory McIlroy to skip certain playoff events if they wanted to.
That, in turn, lent credence to LIV’s argument that their best players are always guaranteed to show up at every event. So the PGA Tour undoubtedly have a problem that they need to get on top of, despite Scheffler deflecting the attention to LIV Golf.
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