The FedEx Cup Playoffs begin this week, and, as you might have heard, the PGA Tour’s biggest star, Rory McIlroy, opted not to spend a week in early August in Memphis at the St. Jude FedEx Championship.
McIlroy telegraphed this decision last fall in an interview with The Telegraph. He has won three times this season, including the Masters, and sits at No. 2 in the FedEx Cup Standings, so his spot at the Tour Championship is all but assured. In short, McIlroy, who has made enough money for several lifetimes playing golf — including just short of $70 million in career earnings in the FedEx Cup Playoffs — earned the right not to play this week. Tiger Woods did the same in 2007.
But as is normally the case with McIlroy, his decision has caused a stir.
In an interview with Golfweek’s Adam Schupak, Peter Malnati hinted that the PGA Tour could be coming up with a way to close the loophole that allows players like McIlroy to skip playoff events with little consequence. He didn’t elaborate, but the idea of a “Rory Rule” is at least being kicked about.
Malnati, it should be noted, is also not in Memphis because he failed to qualify, is speaking from the perspective of a PGA Tour member and a Player Director on the PGA Tour Policy Board. Malnati’s goal is to help the Tour continue cementing the legitimacy of the FedEx Cup Playoffs as a meaningful event, and to please FedEx, which not only sponsors this week’s event but the whole playoff race and the season-long contest. If you want to keep the sponsors happy, it’s probably beneficial if the sport’s biggest active star doesn’t ignore their tournament.
But the PGA Tour’s biggest issue isn’t with McIlroy passing on Memphis. It’s that the playoff system, which has been constantly tweaked and altered, still lacks any meaning outside of the dollars added to bank accounts at the end of August. Can they tweak the format further so points reset and everyone starts the playoffs at zero, thus forcing participation? They can try, but if they do that, they risk losing someone like McIlroy, who finished T68 in Memphis last year, for the remaining two playoff events if he has one bad week. Not having all of the best players at East Lake seems like an own goal worth avoiding. You also run into the sticky area of trying to force players who are supposed to be independent contractors to play certain events, and we saw how that went during the first year of the Signature Event model (if you’ll remember, McIlroy skipped more of those events than he was supposed to).
I’d contend that what the Tour might be “losing” by having McIlroy pass on a sweaty trip to Memphis is much less than what he has given the Tour this year and what he’s likely to bring in the future. He skipped Memorial and the RBC Heritage, where, like Memphis, all of the other top players showed up. But he teed it up in Houston, in New Orleans at the Zurich Classic and at the RBC Canadian Open. The benefit he brings those events shows up in eyeballs, TV ratings, tickets purchased, etc. Altogether, it’s a boon that is hard to quantify.
If you also look at the bigger picture of golf outside the PGA Tour, McIlroy’s remaining schedule after the Tour Championship includes the Irish Open, the BMW PGA Championship, the India Championship, the DP World Tour Championship and the Australian Open, along with the Ryder Cup.
As my colleague Sean Zak wrote, McIlroy talked about being a “global” player, and has followed through on those promises by building a global schedule. McIlroy skipping Memphis but playing in markets — both on the PGA Tour and around the world — that don’t normally witness stars of his caliber is a good trade-off for the sport as a whole.
In the end, McIlroy’s decision does not necessitate a rule. This is not a loophole that needs closing to prevent the entire playoff charade from crumbling on top of itself. In the end, it’s just the spoils of being an elite player with narrowing priorities outside of money.
McIlroy is one of the rare players — due to his standing and career accomplishments — who has the ability to skip an event with a $20 million purse and not mind doing so. Notice how all of the other top 70 players are in Memphis, including Scottie Scheffler. The stars aren’t all skipping. McIlroy hasn’t opened a Pandora’s box that the Tour needs to bolt shut. He earned the right, through his play for the last six months and 16 years, to skip the event. It’s no different than a bye week for top seeds in other sports.
Rory McIlroy gets to play by a different set of rules because of who he is and what he brings to the table. He created the “loophole” by being Rory McIlroy. That’ll be a hard one for 99.9% of the Tour to try and exploit, and it does not require a rule to close it.
