Match play isn’t the answer to the Tour Championship’s endless format complaints

Seven days into Tour Championship week in 2024 and X (formerly Twitter) was still littered with debate and disagreement about the event’s format.

But there is one solution that keeps appearing, even a year later, that some are convinced would work. Match play.

Match play is undoubtedly the best format in the sport. It produces non-stop drama, twists, turns and unpredictability. You only needed to watch the conclusion of the 2024 Curtis Cup at Sunningdale to know this, an event held in the same week as the PGA Tour finale.

It is a volatile version of golf that allows people of all abilities to compete evenly in the amateur and, to an extent, professional spheres. Remember when Phillip Price beat Phil Mickelson in the Ryder Cup singles in 2002?

The idea that match play should be used at the Tour Championship isn’t from a Tin Hat brigade leaflet either. It is an idea that has long been touted online. I’ve previously written about how match play events on the tour don’t work, and they don’t. This is why, although I love match play and I understand the sentiment, people are talking with their hearts and not their heads.

Players might pitch up to play one match if it’s a straight knockout, or only three matches if they are eliminated in a group-stage system.

When a match play tournament reaches the later stages, there are only a few matches on the course which makes for a boring viewing experience on the couch and at the golf course.

Players don’t know if they’re coming or going and the lack of thirst for match play at golf’s highest level, besides biennial team events like the Ryder Cup and the Solheim Cup where the format arguably belongs, is personified by its absence on the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour.

The Tour Championship format in 2024 placed the top 30 players in the FedEx Cup standings, through the regular season followed by the FedEx St. Jude Championship and the BMW Championship (the first two of three FedEx Cup Playoff events), in a staggered leaderboard at East Lake based on their performances and points accumulated during the season.

This has now changed, and there are no more Starting Strokes. You can read more about that here.

Starting Strokes at the 2024 Tour Championship

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Tour Championship format isn’t as easy as a match play solution

It was a procession in favour of Scottie Scheffler who secured his seventh win of the season in Atlanta. He deserved to be the FedEx Cup champion because he was the outstanding player of 2024. He entered the week at 10-under-par and in prime position, and he capitalised to full effect.

But this wasn’t a foregone conclusion as was shown in 2022. Rory McIlroy overturned a six-shot deficit to beat Scheffler at the season finale. Collin Morikawa got within two shots of the World No.1 after eight holes in 2024, but Scheffler pulled away with a back-nine eagle and two more birdies. He won by four shots on 30-under.

“It depends how you want to describe it,” Scheffler said when NCG asked him about the format earlier in the week. “If you want to just have a player that’s playing the best at the end of the year, I think the Playoffs will definitely identify that player. In terms of the season-long race, it’s maybe not always going to be the guy that plays the best the whole season; it’s going to be the guy that plays the best in these playoff events.

“That’s really what you’re identifying is the guy that plays the best in these last three events. It’s a format that’s changed a bunch or a few times over the past few years. In terms of when it first got started you had a year where I think it was Padraig Harrington won two majors and maybe didn’t make the BMW, and I know he didn’t make this tournament. So arguably it wasn’t really a great setup then.”

The table above shows where each player started at the Tour Championship in 2024. I know why people think giving Scheffler a two-shot lead will only bring one outcome. This subsequently led to a damp squib and an overall lack of excitement.

But what is the alternative? I don’t know of a better one, and as much as I love match play, that won’t cut it. At the same time, I am open to suggestions.

How do we put 30 players (or any amount you’d like) against each other, ranking them fairly based on their season performances, while also bringing jeopardy and drama, but not trivialising the success of the top players so they aren’t too easily reeled in by competitors who’ve not nearly produced the same quality of season?

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What do you make of the FedEx Tour Championship format? Should it be turned into match play? Tell us on X!