ST. LOUIS – Ryan Gerard is on the verge of completing his top goal for the season, something he’s never accomplished on the PGA Tour. Gerard, 27, enters the BMW Championship ranked No. 17 in the season-long FedEx Cup points race and looks to be a lock to finish in the top 30. That would punch his ticket to the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta.
“That’s my white whale,” he said. “I told myself if I got to East Lake, it’d be a successful season. That’s the barometer. It gets you in all the majors, a two-year exemption and it means you’ve had a solid season. Then I’ll go to Atlanta and see if I can make some extra birdies and see what happens.”
The 50-man field at Bellerive Country Club will be whittled to 30 this week, and golf fans can only hope that there will be more drama and tension than last week’s snoozer at the first playoff stop, the FedEx St. Jude Championship.
There’s no stopping Scottie Scheffler when his putter is the best in the field, and he won last week by eight strokes, the most this season on the PGA Tour. But the tournament within the tournament – the cut from 70 down to 50 for this week’s BMW Championship – had even less juice.
Sure, golf fans got to watch Keith Mitchell, No. 49 at the start of the week, and Jordan Spieth, No. 52, tighten up under the pressure and come up empty in their desperate pursuit for one last birdie. But only one player – Sungjae Im – moved from outside to inside the top 50, which, of course, meant only one – Mitchell – fell out.
The PGA Tour reduced the volatility out of the first two legs of the playoffs by reducing the point totals. Instead of 2,000 FedEx Cup points being awarded to the winner, Scheffler earned only 750 points, the same amount as the Players Championship.
The Tour also abandoned the starting strokes format at the Tour Championship, which had been instituted in 2019 and gave FedEx Cup leaders in the season-long points race a head start in the Playoff finale. Now, the last event of the season is a 72-hole stroke-play event with all players starting the tournament at even par. The best performer over the course of four rounds at the Tour Championship wins the FedEx Cup and the largest purse of the season, $10 million. It was a step in the right direction.
The Tour’s argument for the change is that a player’s regular season shouldn’t be easily invalidated by a one-week wonder – or one lackluster week – during the playoffs. Last year, with jacked up points available in the first two playoff events, five players moved into the top 50 with their performance at the St. Jude. But that is the essence of playoffs in other sports. Great season's game earn a first-round bye or home-field advantage, but there’s no guarantee that the top team makes the World Series or Super Bowl.
The reduction in point value removed the consequences of playing poorly. Last week, Sahith Theegala finished 67th in a field of 68 (there were two WDs) and only dropped two spots and didn’t have to sweat out falling from the top 50. Rory McIlroy? He finished 66th and dropped just one spot, from No. 12 to 13.
Last year, McIlroy realized he didn't need to play in Memphis and skipped the event. This time, he admitted he showed up unprepared after a long layoff (it was his first event since the Open Championship in mid-July) and was a non-factor. Same could be said for Akshay Bhatia, who was dead last in Memphis and fell from No. 14 to 15. British Open champ Ryan Fox finished T-58 but advanced easily, slipping four spots to No. 25. Then there's Robert McIntyre, who withdrew after an 82 on Thursday. He tumbled down the standings, right? Not really: he slipped from No. 31 to 36.
In all, 42 of the players were mathematically guaranteed to play in the BMW Championship regardless of how they finished. There should be more punishment for stinking up the joint at TPC Southwind. Otherwise, this isn't a playoff; it's a money grab and the Tour Championship becomes just a glorified version of the Hero World Challenge, the 20-man hit-n-giggle in December where everyone gets world ranking points.
While much is on the line at the BMW Championship – from determining the top 30 who advance to East Lake next week to potential Masters invites and the top six automatic qualifiers for the U.S. Presidents Cup team – don’t expect much volatility in the FedEx Cup points list. If you want real excitement this time of year, it's on the Korn Ferry Tour, the PGA Tour’s top developmental circuit, where careers are on the line. The Tour Championship? Only two players moved up into the top 30 after Memphis, with Bud Cauley (34th to 29th) and Kurt Kitayama (33rd to 28th) pushing out Gary Woodland (31st from 27th) and J.T. Poston (32nd from 30th). [Rickie Fowler is the Bubble Boy at the start of the week at No. 30.]
Twenty years into the FedEx Cup playoffs and it’s been an endless game of Whack-a-Mole – fix one flaw and expose another. The Tour already has said that the 2028 playoffs will be decidedly different – with greater emphasis on highlighting the regular season champ and with the introduction of match play to spice things up. That can’t come soon enough.
Adam Schupak is a senior writer for Golfweek, covering the PGA Tour.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Why PGA Tour playoffs lack drama this year
Leave a Comment