Why The Tour Championship’s Staggered Start Serves Its Purpose Well

No system is perfect. And in golf, keeping fans and players happy with the Tour Championship format has proven harder than getting strangers to agree on American politics.

Starting in 2019, the format became a staggered start—where all 30 players in the field begin with scores corresponding with their place in the FedEx Cup. Now, for the third straight year, Scottie Scheffler begins the week at East Lake leading the field at 10-under. The field will be chasing him and most of them have a long way to go as 25 of the 30 players will start at 4-under or worse.

Scheffler may be leading but he’s not a fan of the format.

“I talked about it the last few years; I think it’s silly,” Scheffler said during his presser at the St. Jude FedEx Championship earlier this month. “You can’t call it a season-long race and have it come down to one tournament.

“Hypothetically, we get to East Lake and my neck flares up and it doesn’t heal the way it did at the Players. I finish 30th in the FedEx Cup because I had to withdraw from the last tournament? Is that really the season-long race? No, it is what it is.”

Scheffler is the Tour’s biggest current star by virtue of his play. He has every right to that opinion.

But how many times have you heard LeBron James or Tom Brady or the late Kobe Bryant complain that an ill-timed injury during the NBA Finals or Super Bowl could make the result unfair?

You don’t, because that’s part of the game. These are the playoffs.

Yes, it’s a season-long race starting in January but the race always heats up during the playoffs. Just look at Keegan Bradley reaching 50^th in FedEx Cup after the St. Jude FedEx Championship—earning the last spot available—and then going on to win the BMW Championship on Sunday. The staggered start gets him to within four shots of Scheffler to start this week.

Every good playoff system allows the hot hands to thrive.

For Scheffler to conveniently overlook the urgency of the playoff mentality is almost laughable. In the playoffs of any sport, you’re going to have favorites and long shots. Remember some of the great upsets of the NBA in the past? Like when the eighth-seeded New York Knicks made it all the way to the 1999 NBA Finals? Or when the 2007 eighth-seeded Golden State Warriors knocked out the top-seeded Dallas Mavericks? 

Upsets happen in sports. Volatility is a good thing.

In the case of the FedEx Cup Playoffs, Scheffler—who didn’t win the last two season titles despite his numerical advantage—is the clear favorite, thanks to his play in the regular season more than anything else. With six wins this season, Scheffler began the playoffs with 5,993 points, 2,000 points ahead of second-place Xander Schauffele.

But what about the relative have-nots? They worked hard to get into the top 30 for the Tour Championship. Players ranked 26-30 at East Lake start 10 shots back of Scheffler but there’s a fighting chance for them to win the entire thing by Sunday. And among most players I’ve spoken to about goals over the past decade, making the Tour Championships always ranked high among them.

Billy Horschel chimed in before last week’s BMW Championship in response to Scheffler’s take. “I disagree with Scottie. Scottie said it’s silly. I don’t agree with that. (The system) has never rewarded the best player throughout the regular season.

“I won the ’14 FedEx Cup. Rory McIlroy was clearly the best player that year. He had won two majors. He came in on a high note. I was 69th in the start of the FedEx. I missed the first cut. I go second, win, win, and I win the FedEx Cup.”

Horschel handled pressure very well during that stretch. He played in the final Sunday group in his two wins and closed both of them with the bright lights shining each time.

“It’s no different than the New York Giants starting the playoffs 9-7 (and beating) the undefeated Patriots and then winning the Super Bowl,” Horschel said.

“If you asked two other guys, there’s two different opinions you’re going to get on the FedEx Cup and what they think is the best way, but I believe that our system and the way we do it … could we reward the regular season a little bit more? Sure, we can. But this is a playoffs. Anything can happen.”

Has the staggered scoring system in the Tour Championship worked so far?

I think so. Of course, it’s a little odd on Thursday and Friday to see the staggered scores but this format allows anyone to win. And for us fans at home, isn’t that what we want to see? The favorites with a well-earned head start but the potential Cinderella story that makes Tour golf exciting is always a possibility.

Once we get to the weekend and the scores start looking like a normal tournament again, everyone appears on the same page through to the finish.

“Like, it doesn’t even matter any more how it started, it’s all about how you finish it,” Schauffele said at his pre-Tour Championship presser in 2023. “And everyone knows what’s going on when guys are coming down this nice final stretch here at East Lake and everyone knows what’s at stake.”

And for the fans at home, it’s easier to see what’s at stake without all the live projections and Steve Kornacki–like live updates from NBC’s Steve Sands.

Sands’ colleague Dan Hicks, who calls the play-by-play for the Tour Championship again this year, likes the fan-friendly aspect of the current format.

“This is the best iteration of the playoff formats because, simply put, it’s the easiest for the fan to track at home. No crazy math. Just lowest score on Sunday wins it all,” Hicks told MyGolfSpy. “Is it perfect? Probably not, but I’m not smart enough to improve on it—other than (thinking) is there a way to incorporate match play on the weekend in some way? That way guys toward back half of the top 30 can make their way back into contention to win it all.”

A weekend format with match play could indeed get the players in the lower 15 back in the mix and they would have to win or go home with each match. That could be good. But for TV, coming down to Sunday, that would not be ideal because you can’t guarantee that fans can watch Scheffler and other stars. The top players might get eliminated on Saturday or earlier. Also, there could be fewer players on the course, which hurts the TV product.

In the bigger picture, where do we think the Tour Championship fits on the golf calendar now that we’re three years deep into the PGA Tour/LIV Golf divide?

To veteran golf journalist Jaime Diaz of Golf Channel and Golf Digest, the divide has only helped the Tour Championship.

“I think because of the divide, it matters more. It accentuates the Tour’s competitive advantage over LIV,” Diaz told MyGolfSpy. 

So what exactly does the Tour have that LIV doesn’t in this case?

“Better players—a lot more of them—and more historical importance, more pressure, harder setup, better courses,” Diaz said.

LIV Golf’s Individual Championship that remotely compares to the Tour Championship is at Bolingbrook Golf Club in Chicago on Sept. 13-15. That course isn’t even in Chicagoland’s top 20 courses. When compared to the renovated East Lake, Diaz certainly makes a fair point.

Regardless of venue, it’s the staggered start again this week as Scheffler looks to claim that elusive FedEx Cup.

There might be a better way to decide the Tour’s finale but what we have serves its purpose and provides an intriguing finish to the season.

In the end, that is all golf fans can ask for.