Getty Image / Stan Badz
The Tour Championship was electric last year as Tiger Woods walked down the 18th fairway followed by thousands upon thousands of fans before stepping into the winner’s circle for the first time in over five years.
It will go down as one of the greatest moments and greatest scenes in the game’s history, but it felt beyond absurd that after what felt like watching a movie all day, Woods wasn’t the FedEx Cup champion.
Woods played his way into the season finale and then took down 29 of the best players on the planet en route to a two-stroke victory, but wasn’t the PGA Tour’s 2018 champion, at least not officially.
Woods rightly so dominated the storylines for the entire week while Justin Rose took home the quietest $10 million check ever written finishing T-4 at East Lake but thanks to his point total for the year was FedEx Cup champ.
Rose wasn’t the first player in the FedEx Cup Playoffs history to win the season-long prize while not winning the Tour Championship. In fact, it happened the year prior with Xander Schauffele winning the Tour Championship while Justin Thomas won the FedEx Cup Trophy and the $10 million bonus check.
That’s been the strongest (of many) backlashes against the FedEx Cup Playoffs over the years, the Playoff format has made the Tour Championship winner a forgotten man, excluding Woods in 2018, that’s an outlier.
That shouldn’t be the case at this week’s Tour Championship thanks to the new format. Whoever wins will be named FedEx Cup Champion. The confusing calculations, projected finishes, and other unnecessary aspects are gone.
The person that wins the season finale wins the season-long race.
It isn’t just a 30-man battle for the $15 million prize, well it is, but it’s not that simple.
These guys have been battling for position in the standings all season long, therefore, the tournament will start with Justin Thomas – the points leader- beginning at 10-under, Patrick Cantlay at 8-under, Brooks Koepka at 7-under, Patrick Reed at 6-under, Rory McIlroy at 5-under then the next five players in the standings start at 4-under, the next group of five starting at 3-under and so on until we get to the 26-30 ranked players who will start at even par.
Here's how the Tour Championship leaderboard will start next week:
-10 JT
-8 Cantlay
-7 Koepka
-6 Reed
-5 Rory
-4 Rahm Kuch Ancer Webb Xander
-3 Woodland Finau Scott DJ Hideki
-2 Casey Sneds Rose Fowler Kisner
-1 Leishman Fleetwood Conners Reavie Im
E everyone else
— By The Flagstick (@ByTheFlagstick) August 18, 2019
The new-look, which the players did have a say in, is wild and definitely un-traditional, but there’s no denying that we could see some serious drama right from the start on Thursday until the final hole on Sunday.
There’s the possibility of Thomas running away with the tournament or having a bad week and being known as ‘the player that lost a tournament when starting with a two-shot lead.’ Maybe we see major championship-esque Koepka dominate. Perhaps past FedEx Cup champ Brandt Snedeker, who starts at 2-under, has a hell of a week.
The sheer fact that these guys are going to start at anything other than level par in a tournament in which the winner takes home $15 million is crazy, but in a fun and never before seen good way.
The money on the line this week is beyond crazy.
Everyone in the field is going home with at least $395,000, which is the very fine payday the last-place finisher will receive. The real story though, that’s the fact that the winner will walk home with $15 million while second place goes home with the chump-change of $5 million; just your typical $10 million difference.
Even if you finish fifth this week you’ll be taking home $2.5 million which is a bigger payday than any tournament winnings on the Tour schedule this season.
With a brand-new format of starting the tournament with different scores plus the chance we could see guys putting on the 72nd hole on Sunday for what could be a difference of millions of dollars, this week could be whacky, and I’m here for it.
But in its most basic form, this is still a tournament and the player that wins takes home the biggest prize in the game which is how it should be. Hopefully, it will deliver a true playoff-like atmosphere we see in other sports and one that’s been missing from the FedEx Cup finale throughout its history.
It’s okay to like this new playoff format, the last one stunk.