The Northern Irishman makes his debut in this week’s BMW Championship, having decided to skip the opening tournament of the three-week FedExCup Playoffs in Memphis.
Speaking to the media on Wednesday, McIlroy said the FedExCup was a valiant attempt to mimic the season-ending playoffs structure of other American sports like the NFL and NBA, but said creating the same sense of spectacle was much harder in golf – particularly when one player has been dominant throughout the season.
McIlroy suggested that for any player other than Scottie Scheffler to be considered the season-long champion this year wouldn’t seem right.
“It’s like every other American sport has playoffs, and they sort of try to make a big deal of the end of the season. I think it’s hard in golf. Look, I come from a place where… Liverpool won the Premier League last year with five games to spare. That sometimes what happens in sports. Sometimes you have guys or you have a team that is just that much better than everyone else that season, and they are the deserving winner.”
McIlroy – a three-time winner of the FedEX Cup – welcomed the PGA Tour’s recent decision to scrap the “starting strokes” format at the Tour Championship, a system introduced in 2019 where the FedExCup points leader began the final event at 10-under par, with others starting progressively further back.
“From a player perspective, it seems like the consensus was that people didn’t like the starting strokes. So to get rid of that is a good thing. But I now think that, the Tour Championship not being starting strokes, it’s sort of… it’s its own thing now.
“Obviously, you win the Tour Championship, which then means you win the FedExCup, but I don’t necessarily think that means that you’re the season-long winner – unless Scottie Scheffler wins it and he is the season-long winner. He’s won two majors this year. He’s head and shoulders above the rest in terms of the points going into this week. He’ll be ahead of everyone in the points going into next week. So, he’s deservedly got his bonus all the way through. Then everything resets, and it’s sort of – yeah, I guess I see it as more of a one-off event than a culmination of the entire season.”
McIlroy also weighed in on the structure and future of the FedExCup playoffs, acknowledging some changes were probably needed.
“There’s obviously been a lot of discourse about should these playoffs be mandatory or not,” McIlroy continued. “Obviously, I didn’t play last week, and is that something that they need to look at? It could be something – and I’ve heard this idea kicked around – where everything resets after Wyndham [Championship] and then the top 70 just play for the top 50 spots to get into the next week and then everything resets again here, and then the top 30 from this week then make it to the Tour Championship.
“I mean, if you want to try to make it straight playoffs and elimination, that would be a good way to go. You’re trying to balance a lot of different things. You’re trying to balance the competitive integrity of what the playoffs are, but you’re also trying to keep the media rights partners happy, you’re trying to keep the sponsors happy. They’re the people that are paying the big bucks to expect the big names to be playing in their golf tournaments, and that’s a delicate balance.”
As to his reasons for skipping last week’s FedEx St. Jude Championship, McIlroy said he needed the break in his schedule ahead of a busy finish to the season.
“I’m playing nine times between now and the end of the year, so I think by the time October, November comes around, I’m going to be glad of that extra week off.”
