CASTLE ROCK, Colo. – There was a collective sigh of relief last weekend when Hideki Matsuyama closed out the FedEx St. Jude Championship, bringing an end to what had been 17 months of turmoil.
It began in March 2023, a tense time for the PGA Tour. The top players were getting rich but, apparently, not rich enough. LIV Golf was poaching some of its biggest needle-movers and threatening the Tour’s business model. And a wide swath of the membership was unhappy, some even furious, with a new signature-event series that promised to create an even more distinct class system.
As usual, Rory McIlroy was put in front of reporters to explain the intricacies of the new program that would place heightened importance on being among the top 50 in the FedExCup – the rarified air that would guarantee access to the biggest events, the biggest purses, the biggest point totals.
At the time, there was reasonable concern that the model was creating a closed shop that went against the very spirit of professional golf as the ultimate meritocracy. That capping the fields at the marquee events, each with elevated point totals, was simply insulating those players from poor performance while making it too difficult for others to break in.
The Tour’s goal was to match the usual turnover rate (34-38%), and its data team crunched and re-crunched the numbers in hopes of recreating that typical churn among the top 50 with its new point breakdown.
All that was at stake was players’ careers.
In a quiet moment at TPC Sawgrass, McIlroy said, “They’ve done thousands of simulations. They’ve got some great technology. I trust it. I’ll trust that until it gives me a reason not to. This is what it’s giving us. We don’t know if this is the perfect system. Are there going to continue to be tweaks to this to make it better? Of course. At this point, we just have to go with it and see.”
* * *
Unanimous approval is impossible to find on Tour. We’re reminded of this every year with the FedExCup playoffs, which has been endlessly tweaked since its introduction in 2007 and still, even now, doesn’t always achieve its stated goal of identifying the season-long champion.
And, no, this fledging signature-event series model isn’t flawless either. Tournament winners clogged up one of the two pathways into the signature events. The cadence of the schedule created long stretches for those trying to ride hot streaks. A pedestrian signature-event finish still might be weighted too heavily. Sponsor exemptions to Tour policy board members raised eyebrows.
But in Year 1, at least, it did produce the intended result: There are 19 “new” players among the top 50, a churn rate of 38%.
“I think it seems about right,” said Adam Scott, a player director on the Tour policy board. “It’s about what it’s been every other year. As much as we dissect everything the PGA Tour does, it’s been the benchmark of professional golf; it doesn’t mean that it gets everything right, but it’s been a successful product. I’d be happy to hear any case why that churn rate should be different than that, because you can’t just go far away from what’s been successful until there’s another reason to do so.
“So, in fairness, I’d give that team back there in Ponte Vedra credit. They ran the simulations. And in this instance, there were some outspoken people at the end of last year that said this is all very wrong, and it’s not really worked out like that. Is it absolutely perfect? No. But it certainly doesn’t seem unfair.”
Those who dropped out of the FedEx top 50, year over year, ranged from the obvious to the unfortunate to the underwhelming.
Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton opened up two spots simply by defecting to LIV. Jordan Spieth battled through a lingering wrist injury. Rickie Fowler seemed to lose his game, again. Some who had padded their point totals by playing the previous fall to crack the top-50 threshold last summer – volume-shooters who now have less room to operate with the Tour’s return to a calendar-year schedule – spent this postseason on the sidelines.
Those who weren’t retained among the Tour’s ruling class didn’t necessarily play poorly in 2024; only Fowler, who was 106th, finished outside the top 80.
It just wasn’t good enough.
And that’s OK, too.
“It’s hard,” Justin Thomas said, “but it’s also hard to keep a job at any professional level. Maybe we’ve just been a little generous in the past. And it’s like, look, if we want the best product, we want the best players, then all of us have to earn it. And that’s just what it is.”
* * *
Those who narrowly missed qualifying for the 50-man BMW Championship should feel similarly.
Tom Kim lost in a playoff in a signature event and would have advanced if not for a late collapse in Memphis.
Maverick McNealy was the 12th-best player on Tour this season in strokes-gained: total and is now watching from home.
Patrick Rodgers earned his most top-10s in a season (four) since 2015 and didn’t get through.
The margins are thin. Always have been.
For the most part, their near-misses weren’t because of a lack of opportunity. Of the eight players who were closest to the top-50 cutoff, seven played in at least seven signature events; McNealy, who got in only one, was coming off an injury-plagued 2023 and came into the new year needing to fulfill a major medical exemption. Zoomed out even wider: Of the players who finished Nos. 51-70 in the standings, 15 of them played at least four of the marquee events.
In other words, they still needed to take advantage of their golden opportunity.
Rookie Jake Knapp (No. 59) won in Mexico and was gifted access into the five remaining signature events. His combined average finish in those tournaments: 56th. It was a similar story for Taylor Moore (No. 64), who was in all eight signature events this year. But his average finish in those with a cut: 45th.
“You have to have a really, really good year to make it into the top 50,” Thomas said.
So, how did this BMW field come together?
Ten of the 19 newbies in the top 50 were Tour winners in 2024, aiding the circuit’s case that it still prioritizes trophies. Those victories unlocked immediate access into the marquee events for the remainder of the season, an avenue that proved helpful for, among others, Matthieu Pavon, Akshay Bhatia, Billy Horschel, Stephan Jaeger, Taylor Pendrith and Austin Eckroat. Even those who won later in the year, once the premier events were largely wrapped up – such as Robert MacIntyre, Davis Thompson and Aaron Rai – had done enough previously to get across the line.
“I sit here now and I’m an example that if you play well and you take advantage of the opportunities that you get – whether it’s in some signature events or you play well in the majors where there are more FedExCup points – you can get inside the top 50,” Horschel said. “Is it easy? No, it isn’t. It’s going to be hard, and it should be a little bit of a challenge. Nothing should be handed to us by any means.”
* * *
Max Greyserman is standing outside the clubhouse at Castle Pines, a bag slung over his shoulder, his work done for the day.
The Tour rookie was one of the bubble boys last week in Memphis but, with a final-round 63, secured his spot among the coveted top 50. It capped a dizzying summer stretch for a player who, just two months ago, was worried about simply keeping his card. Then he played well in the U.S. Open, finished second at the 3M Open and woulda-coulda-shoulda won the regular-season finale in Greensboro.
Greyserman, 29, recalled hearing at rookie orientation all about the signature events and swings and churn rates, but he was more focused on his own schedule. As a first-timer on Tour, he was determined to play in every single tournament for which he was eligible, trying to stockpile points and maybe sneak his way into a few elevated events. That turned out to be a 23-tournament slate in which he hasn’t had two consecutive weeks off in more than six months.
“It’s just the way the Tour is structured,” he said, “that you just start from behind.”
Not that Greyserman was complaining. Over the course of his rookie season, he became acutely aware of how there’s essentially two tours now – one for the haves, the other for the have-mores.
“You’re getting into less events, you’re playing for fewer points overall, but on the flip side of that, you’re not playing against Scottie (Scheffler), Rory and Xander (Schauffele) who routinely finish inside the top 10,” he said. “It’s a stark difference, and I feel like there’s a different level of golf for the top guys.
“So, I think the current structure is fair because you get the opportunity not to play against the Scotties of the world and still accumulate points. Do you start from behind? Yes. But that’s just how it goes.”
And it’s what made his payoff into the BMW that much more satisfying. Greyserman is one of just two players (Rai) who made the elite field without playing a single signature event this year.
He did it his way. The hard way.
“I’m really, really happy,” he said, “because last week changed everything for me.”
Before his torrid close to the season, Greyserman was already preparing for the fall. He’d made travel plans and intended to sign up for every event, hoping to climb the standings and, through the Nos. 51-60 points category, gain entry into at least the first two signature events of the new year.
But now, with his new status, he’s rethinking everything. He can go to Napa for a working vacation with his wife. He can go play in Japan, if only to gorge on sushi. He can play the Tour stop in Vegas at his old home course.
There’s still plenty of motivation: A win or top-50 world ranking by the end of the year gets him into the Masters (currently 51st). But some of the pressure to chase points is off.
“My whole career has been a rat race,” Greyserman said, “and now, for the first time, it’s not. Everything is so fresh and new now.”
And it’s why it’s instructive to look back at how McIlroy framed the discussion that day in March 2023. It was all about access, he said, and ensuring that, even if it’s now a bit harder, the players still got a fair shot at altering their career trajectories.
“And there’s one way to solve that,” he said. “It’s to shoot the scores and qualify.”
The Tour’s parlance has changed. The goalposts have moved. But 17 months later, that central tenet remains.