Ever wondered why golf’s biggest season finale keeps getting format changes every few years? It seems like players, fans, and even the PGA Tour can’t quite decide on the perfect formula for crowning a true season-long champion. Now, a potential shift to match play has one of the Tour’s biggest stars concerned.

Speaking at the 2025 Arnold Palmer Invitational pre-game press conference, Rory McIlroy expressed reservations about the PGA Tour’s rumored plans to change the Tour Championship format. This comes after Scottie Scheffler’s harsh criticism of the current staggered-start system when he publicly called it “silly” at the 2024 FedEx St. Jude Championship.

When asked about the potential bracket-style tournament format being considered for 2025, McIlroy didn’t hold back his concerns. “Everyone sort of talks about the match play format… would East Lake lend itself to match play and would that be exciting? And it might be, but I think one of the comments has been, you know, we play stroke play the whole way throughout the season, and then to decide the FedExCup champion, we play match play? I don’t know if that’s the best way to determine the season-long champion,” the Northern Irishman said.

This response comes directly after reports from The Athletic revealed that the PGA Tour is in “advanced discussions” to revamp the Tour Championship into a bracket-style event as early as this year. The new setup would look a lot like the old World Golf Championships Match Play, now no longer in play, where golfers face off one-on-one and losers go home. Tour officials have been rushing to fix things after many top players complained the current system isn’t fair, especially after Scheffler didn’t hold back his frustration last August.

What makes McIlroy’s hesitation particularly interesting is his remarkable success under both previous FedEx Cup formats. He’s the only player to have won it three times—once under the older points reset system (2016) and twice under the current staggered start format (2019 and 2022).

McIlroy did acknowledge some appeal in the proposed format, adding, “I like the format, I like the idea. The brackets and seedings and all that, I really like that. But I just don’t know if it’s the right tournament for it.” 

McIlroy’s stance on the format debate becomes even more intriguing when we look at how the FedEx Cup has evolved throughout its history and his own success across different systems.

The evolution of FedEx Cup formats

Since the introduction of the FedEx Cup back in 2007, they’ve changed how it works several times. At first, they had four playoff events where points were added up. But this created some problems – like when Vijay Singh had basically won the whole thing before the final tournament even started in 2008. TV viewers weren’t too excited about watching when they already knew the winner.

From 2009 to 2018, the Tour tweaked the points and cut back to three playoff events. They wanted to keep more players in the hunt until the end. But people still complained that it was too complicated, and sometimes players who just got hot during the playoffs could win, even if they hadn’t played well all season long.

The 2019 format shake-up was the biggest one yet. The top player now starts the final tournament with a huge head start at 10-under par, and everyone else gets fewer strokes based on their ranking. This fixed the weird problem where someone could win the tournament but not the FedEx Cup. But now people are arguing if the last four rounds at East Lake matter too much when deciding who had the best entire season.

“They call it a season-long race, but really it just comes down to one tournament at East Lake,” Scottie Scheffler complained in 2024. You can see why he’s upset – he was the points leader heading into the final tournament in both 2022 and 2023 but ended up losing the FedEx Cup both times.

With the Tour Championship coming up in August 2025, the big question is what the PGA Tour will do. They’re trying to balance old traditions with new ideas, make it fair for players but also fun to watch, and figure out whether to listen to McIlroy’s warnings or push forward with the big changes that Scheffler’s complaints kicked off.