Breakfast Ball #32: PGA Tour Playoff Szn

This week was a bit more exciting than usual as I had the opportunity to write a piece in The Irish Times. Take a look if you haven’t already, and welcome to all those who found their way here from that article!

In This Week’s Newsletter:

Big Money, Low Drama—Why the PGA Tour's Season Finale Falls Flat

The FedEx Cup was introduced in 2007 to determine a yearly winner for the PGA Tour in the only way Americans know how: playoffs. All tournaments on the PGA Tour grant points based on each player’s finish, and at the end of the year the top 70 players make it to the St. Jude Championship. The top 50 after that make it to the BMW championship, and the field is finally whittled down to 30 for the Tour Championship where a champion is determined.

The current champion is Viktor Hovland, who won both the BMW Championship and the Tour Championship last year and pocketed over $20M in doing so. Despite the PGA Tour being the best golf circuit in the world, its Tour Championship format is not held in very high regard. Rory McIlroy has won the tournament three times since his last major victory, yet you rarely hear that mentioned when people talk about his career achievements. Viktor Hovland’s win last year was quickly forgotten as he fell into a poor run of form to start this year.

The next three weeks are by far the most lucrative for players on the PGA Tour. There will be $115M in prize money up for grabs, and while that may excite the players, the format as it stands does not provide the same excitement for the viewers. The Olympics was incredible because players were representing their country. The Majors provide drama due to their history and standing in the game. If we were about to see three tournaments with all of the world’s best players, I would be genuinely excited. But with the fractured golf landscape we have today, it is difficult. We will not see the likes of Bryson and Rahm play against McIlroy and Scheffler until next April at The Masters.

I believe that in the future we will see LIV and PGA golfers play alongside each other on a regular basis. For now, these FedEx Cup playoffs feel quite insignificant.

The European Ryder Cup Team Announces a New Qualification System for 2025

After some speculation, the Ryder Cup qualification process for Team Europe was confirmed last week. As it was in 2022, Luke Donald will have six captain’s picks and six players will qualify automatically through a points system. However, that points system will be quite different this time around. In the past, there were two points lists: one for points gained on the DP World Tour and another for world ranking points. Three players qualified from each list, which gave us the six required to fill out the team.

This time around it will be consolidated into one list with players acquiring points based on their finishes in the following events:

Players will begin accumulating points at the British Masters taking place later this month, with the qualification process ending at the DP World Tour event that concludes on August 24th, 2025.

There are a couple of immediate takeaways. As expected, LIV players will not be able to accumulate points playing in LIV events. They will need to maintain their DP World Tour membership to be eligible for selection, which involves playing in at least four events per year. Most LIV players will fulfill this requirement in the late season events this autumn, which should be a good boost for the tour.

However, the main takeaway is the devaluation of the top events on the DP World Tour. The Rolex Series consists of five events that includes the DP World Tour Championship at the end of the season. These events will be worth 1,000 points less than the PGA Tour signature events in 2025. It is difficult to see players like Bob MacIntyre and Paul Lawrie, who in the past qualified for teams solely based on their DP World/European Tour performances, qualify for the team in its current format. It is becoming more clear that the DP World Tour is a second tier offering behind the PGA Tour and there doesn’t seem to be much enthusiasm to change that. More to come on that in the offseason.

Wyndham Championship Results:

• 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Aaron Rai picked up his first PGA Tour victory with a win at the Wyndham Championship!

  • In an exciting back nine, Rai’s main opponent Max Greyserman had a four hole stretch of eagle-quadruple bogey-birdie-double bogey. Meanwhile, Rai shot a bogey-free 64 to leap above his opponent and win by two strokes

  • Rai has been knocking on the door over the last couple of months with five top 20 finishes in his last 6 starts before this week

  • This catapulted him into 25th in the FedEx Cup standings, giving the Englishman a great opportunity to make the Tour Championship

• 🤨 As the tournament was coming to a close, daylight was at a premium as the final group walked down the 18th hole. Matt Kuchar picked up his ball from the rough and decided to come back on Monday morning to finish his round

  • Kuchar was T12, 7 shots back off the leader, with no chance to make the FedEx Cup playoffs. The other two players in his group finished the tournament. A very bizarre moment.

• 🇪🇺 Prominent European players Shane Lowry, Justin Rose, and Bob MacIntyre all missed the cut

  • Justin Rose had an opportunity to make the cut with a chip on the last hole, but it agonizingly lipped out

Coming up this week on Tour

• 🌍️ 16 Europeans finished inside the top 70 of the FedEx Cup standings and will tee it up in the St. Jude Championship this week

  • 🇫🇷 Victor Perez and 🇮🇪 Seamus Power played their way into the top 70 this week, finishing in 70th and 66th respectively

  • Only the top 50 will qualify for the BMW Championship the following week

• LIV Golf returns with an event at The Greenbrier in West Virginia

  • The last three events of the season will take place in the US

• The DP World Tour is in Prague for the D+D Czech Masters

If you have any feedback for the newsletter or would like to get in touch, I would love to hear from you! Email [email protected] or message us on Twitter/X at @BlueHorizonGolf. Thank you for reading!