Given what’s happened over the past two years, Scottie Scheffler has good reason to dislike the FedExCup playoff format.
Scheffler arrived at East Lake in both 2022 and 2023 as the top player in the FedEx Cup rankings, meaning he was at 10 under par and two strokes ahead of the second-place player at the start of the tournament. But he didn’t win the FedEx Cup in either case. The Tour Championship uses a “starting stroke format,” which distributes strokes based on players’ performance throughout the season. But the best players only have a two-stroke advantage going into the final 72 holes.
That’s why Schaeffler is not a fan.
“I think that’s stupid,” Scheffler said.
“You can’t just have a whole season of racing wrapped up in one tournament.”
Schauffele currently leads the FedExCup standings by a wide margin over No. 2 Xander Schauffele in the season-long race. Schauffele, who is also having the best year of his career, is nearly 2,000 points behind Schauffele, who has six wins this season. Meanwhile, Rory McIlroy is about 1,500 points behind Schauffele in third place and 3,500 points behind Schauffele. Meanwhile, Collin Morikawa is just 100 points behind McIlroy in fourth place, proving that Schauffele and Schauffele are in a class of their own.
But Scheffler is in a whole different league thanks to victories at Bay Hill, TPC Sawgrass, Augusta National, Harbour Town, Muirfield Village and, most recently, TPC River Highlands. Oh, and he also won a gold medal in Paris, though that wasn’t an official PGA Tour event. Scheffler has also finished in the top 10 in 14 of the 16 events he’s played.
He was the best player this season, even though Schauffele won back-to-back majors at Valhalla and Royal Troon.
“I try not to dwell too much on tournament results. If I didn’t win at East Lake, it wouldn’t really make a difference when I look back on this season,” Scheffler said.
“I’m just going to show up there and do my best. I think the last two years I was No. 1 going into the tournament. In 2022 I had a real chance to win and just didn’t get it done, and last year I played really bad all week.”
Scheffler also ignited the debate with a great what-if that certainly could happen, given his neck injury at The Players Championship in March.
“Let’s say I get to East Lake, my neck hurts, it doesn’t heal like it did at The Players, I pulled out of the last tournament and I finish 30th in the FedEx Cup. Is that really a season-long race? No,” Scheffler said.
“I don’t consider it a season-long race, but you have to figure out how to balance it with being good television and being a season-long race. At this point, I don’t know exactly what the ratings are and what they’ll be, but it’s true that when you have a stroke-play tournament that’s on the same golf course every year, you can’t call it a season-long race.”
Jack Mirko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation Playing Through. Follow For more golf articles, follow us on Twitter Jack Mirko In the same way.
