NBC’s Dan Hicks caused a stir during the Tour Championship broadcast when he highlighted the event’s new format. Fans had reason to be puzzled. For six straight years, the PGA Tour’s finale used a much-debated system. Now, that was gone. It was replaced by a standard 72-hole stroke-play tournament. But nobody felt the effect of the change more than Scottie Scheffler.

He settled for a T-4 finish and took home $2.6 million. But as per ‘Golf Digest’, the payout would have been much higher under the older format. Under that, he would have entered East Lake at 10 under par and with a two-shot lead over No. 2 Rory McIlroy. In fact, the golfer would have had a five-shot edge over No. 5 Tommy Fleetwood, who won his first PGA Tour title along with the FedEx Cup. Talking about that on ‘5 Clubs’ on YouTube, host Gary Williams said: “I don’t have to be a deep thinker to separate who was the best player all year from the guy who won the last event.

“And who knows, maybe they’re going to return to some type of separation where you can still have a tournament inside the tournament. And I never had a problem with it.” His point is obvious. Scheffler has been the best golfer this season. He tasted victory in five events, including two majors. He also recorded 7,456 Fed Cup points, which is much higher than Rory McIlroy’s 3,687 points. So, in the current format, announcing the FedEx Cup winner as the tour champion belittles a season’s worth of good golf. But this is not the first time the FedEx Cup finale has been caught in an identity crisis.

Before 2019, there was a separation. There used to be one winner of the Tour Championship and another winner of the FedEx Cup. That’s how Tiger Woods won his unforgettable 80th career victory at East Lake in 2018, while Justin Rose, who had a better season overall, claimed the cup. Phil Mickelson had lived through similar moments. “Tiger and Phil had to share a photo op, and one won one, and one won the other, and you’re going, ‘Well, this is really awkward.’ It wasn’t awkward for me. I loved it,” Williams recalled.

But the Tour scrapped the dual-winner setup in favor of the staggered start format a year later. Season-long points leader would begin the TOUR Championship now with a lead by being under par. But starting this year, they did away with this rule too, which led to a lot of debate in the golf world. Instead, the officials decided on a 72-hole stroke-play event with all players starting the tournament at even par. “The starting system was kind of wonky, it seemed like made-for-TV and not a great way to identify someone who has played well all year and deserves to win the FedEx Cup,” Brandt Snedeker, the 2012 FedEx Cup champion and a member of the PAC this season, said in May.

But some players also backed the change. For instance, Patrick Cantlay, who didn’t win a single event this season, defended the decision. “I think at this point, if you played a whole year and get into the Tour Championship with the 30 best guys who have played the best all year, and you beat them that week with everything on the line, that’s a huge accomplishment.” What’s more interesting is that even Scottie Scheffler backed this approach. “I’m much more happy with this format. I think having a good golf tournament on a really good golf course to finish off our season is extremely important.”

But things are probably going to change. New PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp seems ready to address this tension the moment he takes over. Rolapp has already launched a Future Competition Committee led by Tiger Woods, tasked with blowing up the current model and redesigning how golf’s regular season and postseason connect. He is going to have fewer events with a simpler structure. Rolapp believes that the current FedEx Cup system requires advanced mathematics to understand what matters. “Competition should be easy to follow,” Rolapp explained.

And this is exactly what Williams opined. He believes that very soon the golf world is going to see a change. “I think one of the things that we’re going to see is that they’re going to alter this, and we’re going to turn this into a finals series. And if that means some type of implementation of match play, maybe.” Meanwhile, fans are already at a crossroads over Tommy Fleetwood’s win.

Fans angered over Scottie Scheffler’s snub!

Many fans have spoken against this system. Although they are not against Fleetwood, the playoff format, where all 30 players started at even par, didn’t sit right with them. A fan wrote:

• “I’ve been pretty vocal about this, and I’m going to reiterate my sentiment. This FedEx Cup format su*ks. They should never have done away with the original format. The fact that anyone other than Scottie Scheffler has the opportunity to win the FedEx Cup is ridiculous.”

The new format looks like it is still in progress, and so, golf fans expect to see more changes in the near future. One solution is to make the final three competitions a stand-alone event. Qualification can be based on the FedEx points, but the difference would be in how those points are awarded. It could be across all three, and the final points would decide both the FedEx Cup and the Tour Championship’s outcome.

• “Scottie Scheffler having more than double the FedEx points of any other player and doesn’t get to win the FedEx cup is insane to me.”
• “In order to win the FedEx Cup, you have to play good golf at the right time.”

Of course, there is no single best way to design a tournament that can determine the best player. That’s precisely why upsets occur, which adds to fan excitement. But seeing how fans aren’t happy about a deserving player losing out, the Tour might make some changes.

• “Scottie wanted it bad, but his putter was cold. The FedEx Cup is no major, but it was big.“
• “I like Tommy Fleetwood but the FedEx Cup means less than nothing when a guy with zero wins is about to claim it over a guy with five wins and two majors. So desperate to make it exciting that you succeeded in making it a title of zero significance except for $$$. Nice job, guys.”

In the end, Tommy Fleetwood ended up getting the money ($10 million) and the cup. With that, he also ended his ongoing storyline of close misses.