ORLANDO, Fla. — The future format of the Tour Championship will be debated late Tuesday at a meeting of the PGA Tour Player Advisory Council at Bay Hill Lodge & Club.
“That is one of the topics that we’re going to cover tonight in our PAC meeting, spend a significant amount of time on it. Something we spent a lot of time at our board meeting on,” PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan confirmed during media availability ahead of the Tour’s Arnold Palmer Invitational.
Monahan has routinely said “everything’s on the table,” and that includes the format of the Tour Championship, which features a 30-man field. The current starting-stroke format, which gives FedEx Cup leaders in the season-long points race a head start in the Playoff finale, has drawn criticism from players who believe it undermines the prestige of winning the Tour Championship. The proposed changes, which have been under discussion internally, are aimed at enhancing interest in the competition. Television ratings for the Tour Championship have been underwhelming, prompting a push for changes from the Tour’s broadcast partners. The FedEx Cup playoff structure has been tweaked several times since its inception in 2007. Monahan reiterated the changes could be approved and put into effect in time for this year’s FedEx Cup finale in late August. “When you’re spending this amount of time, and getting this level of input with the players taking an active role in helping us define what would ultimately be an improvement in the Tour Championship, I would like to think that that’s going to lead to a result,” he said. “The timing on it, for 2025, we’re still shooting for that, but at this point in time, I mean, I can’t say if it’s absolutely going to happen, but it’s a goal.
“Listen, I think the thing that we’re balancing is that if you look at the performance of the Tour Championship and you look at it over the last eight to 10 years, from where the Tour Championship was and where the FedEx Cup was, there’s been strong consumption. So we’re going to make sure that the moves that we’re making, No. 1, respond to fans, that the players themselves believe in and have advocated for, before we make any change. That’s why this is probably a longer process than you would have imagined it being.”
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: PGA Tour PAC to discuss possible Tour Championship changes on Tuesday
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