The PGA Tour season, at long last, is coming to a close. All that’s left is the FedEx Cup Playoffs finale in the Tour Championship, where (wait for it) $75 million will be up for grabs.
So, how does it all work? We’re glad you asked. We could all use a refresher.
The Tour Championship uses a stroke-based bonus system based on the current FedEx Cup standings, meaning not everyone enters the tournament on the same playing field.
This has been the formula for the past four years, as the Tour changed the format beginning in 2019. The old format crowned a Tour Championship winner and a FedEx Cup Playoffs champion (although sometimes it was the same person), and keeping track of essentially two different tournaments — for players and fans — was, well, confusing.
So now there’s just one champion, who, along with winning the Tour Championship, will also be the FedEx Cup Playoffs champ.
The leader of the FedEx Cup points race starts the Tour Championship, held at East Lake in Atlanta, at 10 under. The top five in the standings is staggered (2nd at eight under, 3rd at seven under, 4th at six under and 5th at five under), and the last 25 players in the field are more bunched (i.e. places 6-10 start at four under, and so on).
Here’s where everyone will start for the playoffs.
Tour Championship starting scores
10 under: Scottie Scheffler
Eight under: Viktor Hovland
Seven under: Rory McIlroy
Six under: Jon Rahm
Five under: Lucas Glover
Four under: Max Homa, Patrick Cantlay, Brian Harman, Wyndham Clark, Matt Fitzpatrick
Three under: Tommy Fleetwood, Russell Henley, Keegan Bradley, Rickie Fowler, Xander Schauffele
Two under: Tom Kim, Sungjae Im, Tony Finau, Corey Conners, Si Woo Kim
One under: Taylor Moore, Nick Taylor, Adam Schenk, Collin Morikawa, Jason Day
Even: Sam Burns, Emiliano Grillo, Tyrrell Hatton, Jordan Spieth, Sepp Straka
Max Homa’s heckler incident illustrated risky future for PGA Tour, gambling
But just because Scheffler has a two-stroke lead over second place — and a much larger lead over others — doesn’t mean he’s bound to run away with this.
Take last year, for example, when Scheffler held the same spot on the leaderboard but was eventually beaten by Rory McIlroy, who started the tournament six shots back and even rebounded from a triple bogey on his first hole of the week to win the whole thing.
You can follow the action from 1-6 p.m. ET on Golf Channel on Thursday and Friday. Saturday’s broadcast is 1-3 p.m. on Golf Channel and 3-7 p.m. on CBS, and Sunday’s final round is 12-1:30 p.m. on Golf Channel and 1:30-6 p.m. on CBS.