FedEx Cup Playoffs Need to Find a Path Toward More Volatility

At 51st in the projected FedEx Cup standings, Keith Mitchell pulled his tee shot left on the final hole at TPC Southwind during Sunday’s final round, the ball finishing inside the hazard, but still inches away from the awaiting pond.

Of all the times to play it safe on the PGA Tour, this wasn’t one of ‘em. Mitchell needed a birdie to crack the top-50 and continue his season at the BMW Championship, so he hitched up his pant legs, submerged himself to the knees and took a lash at his ball, only to watch it fall short of the green and bounce into the hazard again — this time finding a watery grave.

Over the final few hours of the opening playoff event, that projection held accurate, as Mitchell remained outside the line of demarcation.

Once the proverbial dust finally settled, he was the lone player inside the top-50 to start the week who didn’t end it there, replaced by Sungjae Im, who finished tied for fifth place in Memphis.

If that sounds like an inadequate amount of volatility, you aren’t alone in such analysis.

This year marks the 20^th edition of the FedEx Cup playoffs, which means that for 20 years, everyone from statistical analysts in Ponte Vedra Beach headquarters to observers watching from the couch has been trying to figure out the proper way to mimic the electrifying postseasons of other sports, where the best teams of the regular season often receive an inherent advantage, but frequently don’t win.

Of course, those sports don’t rely on the gravitational pull of individual superstars like golf.

It’s already been announced that the season-finale Tour Championship will transform into a match play tournament beginning in 2028 and we’ve learned over the years that this format usually doesn’t go according to plan. To use an old journalism term, I’ve always believed that match play events can be an “inverted pyramid,” as Day 1 provides more excitement than Day 2, Day 2 is better than Day 3, and so on, which is antithetical to the traditional crescendo of professional golf.

We’d like to idealistically believe that Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy battling for 18 holes is the perfect sendoff into football season, but every so often you get a Steve Stricker/Pierre Fulke or a Kevin Sutherland/Scott McCarron or a Kevin Kisner/Matt Kuchar.

No offense to any of those names, but there are sponsors and rightsholders and other entities who’d like to ensure a return on investment at the conclusion of these playoffs.

If, as many have suggested over the years, the opener simply cut from 70 players to 50 based on the leaderboard, stars such as McIlroy and Collin Morikawa would’ve been amongst those, in this specific scenario, whose seasons have ended.

And so, the question continues being asked: How can the PGA Tour create more volatility in this structure without creating too much?

What’s clear is that the current format is akin to a Week 18 of the NFL season when all teams have already locked in their playoff seeds and the starters are resting during what should be the most exciting part of the regular-season schedule.

At one point during the final-round broadcast on CBS, Jim Nantz confirmed what every viewer must have been thinking when a scorecard graphic showed Jordan Spieth at the same FedEx Cup number following a birdie on the back-nine as he was after a bogey two holes later: “That’s interesting — it didn’t change when he made the birdie; it still stayed at 52nd. And even with the bogey, he’s 52nd.”

There needs to be more stories like that of Mitchell, who spent this season teetering on the brink of playing in the biggest events, only to find himself in figurative hot water while standing in that pond on the final hole.

“I was one foot in, one foot out all year,” he said unironically after wading into the hazard with both feet. “In the majors, in the signature events. I didn’t have a schedule. … I didn’t have off weeks built in. Every week, I was first alternate. ‘Am I going to get in?’ And that’s good, because you’re playing well, but if you’re in at the start of the season, it’s a different life, literally, as a PGA Tour player.”

Those who survived Memphis and booked a ticket to St. Louis for this week’s BMW Championship are guaranteed to be exempt into the signature events next season, which in turn will almost unanimously qualify them for the upper-tier schedule in 2028, when the PGA Tour will essentially split into two separate circuits.

Follow that domino theory and it’s not difficult to envision how a player like Matt McCarty, who finished this past weekend in that coveted 50^th position, might take a very different – and much more profitable – career path than if he’d fallen out of that spot.

Such a massive discrepancy between the haves and have-nots should engender more volatility, not less. The stories of players making a leap with every birdie and a perilous drop with every bogey would have been the underlying subplot to Sunday’s proceedings, less about earning a chip and chair in St. Louis and more about likely earning a seat at the grown-ups table for the next 24 months.

Simply put, there needs to be enough volatility in the playoffs that it captivates golf fans, but probably not so much that it eliminates some of the biggest names from advancing.

That’s the issue with trying to serve so many invested parties. Twenty years in, the PGA Tour is still attempting to strike the right balance. The only correct answer so far is that it isn’t done trying.