The PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup Playoffs have been a drag for a really long time.
No matter what the Tour has tried, the result has lacked the excitement and interest that it would want for what should be a dramatic end to a long season.
We’ve seen and heard plenty of ideas to make it better and it finally seems the Tour could explore match play to decide the season-long champion as CEO Brian Rolapp mentioned the possibility during his press conference last week.
I’m a believer that switching to match play could finally give the Tour’s postseason an identity fans can rally around.
Individual sports have struggled to find the right balance in a playoff system
The Tour hasn’t been alone with its playoff issue. NASCAR has famously tinkered with its format in recent years. It once held a simple, season-long points system but the champion was often determined with multiple races left. In 2003, Matt Kenseth won the title despite winning just once all year and NASCAR has been messing with its playoff system ever since.
In recent years, the NASCAR playoff format had become incredibly convoluted so it reverted to a simple 10-race playoff this year with no eliminations and a straightforward points system to get into the playoff and take home the title.
Tennis has also had to try plenty of different formats for its ATP Finals. It seems to have found a decent place in recent years with a format that allows plenty of short, exciting matches and an overall tournament that feels distinct from the rest of the year.
The Tour joined in on messing with the format in 2019. Before that, the season-long champion and Tour Championship winner were often different. This created a weird finish in which two players could be considered victorious and fans were left following both the tournament contenders and the season-long points contenders.
It got more convoluted after that as the Tour introduced a staggered stroke system to open the tournament and fans seemed to lose interest in what should have felt like a dramatic season-ending event.
Match play always felt like the solution and it appears Tour CEO Brian Rolapp agrees.
Rolapp mentioned the potential introduction of match play for the postseason
In his presser on Wednesday before The Players Championship, Rolapp went over potential upcoming changes to the Tour, many of which have gotten positive feedback from fans and critics.
We’ve gone over many of them here at MyGolfSpy but the one I’m most excited about is match play to determine the FedEx Cup champion.
Something has to be done to the Tour’s playoffs. After the Open Championship ends in July, the golf season feels like it’s basically over. There is still a bit of fun as players advance to the next stage of the playoffs but that’s about it.
And it’s telling that I’m more likely to name the winner of the Valspar Championship some years than the Tour Championship winner.
The old WGC Match Play event was a huge hit on the schedule each year, especially once Austin Country Club became the permanent home. It seemed to be one of the popular tournaments each year for fans and there were also plenty of players who voiced support of the event.
But the Tour cut out the event when it continued to change its schedule and focus on signature events. The explanation seemed flawed—but Rolapp might be fixing Jay Monahan’s terrible mistake.
The format remains to be seen but I have something in mind
For the first of the three playoff events, the Tour could use stroke play to cut the playoff field from 125 to 64 using season-long points with a multiplier so players can make a big jump.
At the second playoff event, match play begins. Thursday and Friday would be standard 18-hole matches which would drop the field to 16 players. That’s when the real fun could begin, bringing in 36-hole matches Saturday and Sunday to send eight players to East Lake for the finale.
At East Lake, you could begin the week on Wednesday with 36-hole matches over two days to cut the field to the semifinalists. They would play 36 holes again over Friday and Saturday to set the stage for the final on Sunday.
Sunday’s 36-hole final would mirror tournaments like the U.S. Amateur, really highlighting the match and creating a dramatic stage for the Tour champion.
It’s more likely the Tour will choose something simple with 32 players going to East Lake and playing 18-hole matches from Wednesday through Sunday to determine the champion. But I like the idea of exclusivity for the final tournament, along with playing 36 holes in the final matches.
Here’s how the 2025 playoffs would have looked with match play
And for the winner? I think Tommy Fleetwood would currently bring home a match-play tournament to win the Tour Championship due to his consistent play and balanced game.
This bracket looks incredible and the idea of it lasting over a couple of weeks with 36-hole matches in play really gets me excited. It would likely change the entire opinion on the Tour playoffs and finally get the attention the Tour finale deserves after a long season.
What do you think about match play in the Tour Championship? Let me know below in the comments.
Top Photo Caption: Rory and Xander faced each other in the old WGC-Match Play Championship. (GETTY IMAGES/David Buono)
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