This ‘nice rule change’ helped Tommy Fleetwood pocket $10 million

The FedEx Cup playoff format has been amended more than a congressional bill.

It began with a flawed point system that allowed a dominant Vijay Singh, in 2008, to essentially win the title before he’d even struck a single shot at the Tour Championship. That algorithm gave way to a complicated matrix that required intrepid Golf Channel reporter Steve Sands to explain to viewers what was happening on the leaderboard in the same manner that cable-news reporters break down voting results on election night.

The next major iteration to the playoffs came in 2018 when the PGA Tour rolled out a “starting strokes” format that assigned strokes to players based on their FedEx Cup rank. That system was still in place a year ago when Tommy Fleetwood started the Tour Championship at one under par, nine back of FedEx Cup leader Scottie Scheffler.

Giving Scheffler a nine-shot runway is like giving Noah Lyles a 30-meter head start in the 100-meter dash. Good luck catching him. And indeed, Fleetwood did not catch Scheffler, who finished his triumphant week at East Lake at 30 under — 20 shots clear of the lusciously locked Englishman.

This year, though, Fleetwood’s prospects were much brighter in the FedEx finale. For one thing, he’d been on a heater, with three top-5 finishes in his last five starts, including in each of the first two playoff events. For another thing, the Tour, for 2025, had changed the FedEx Cup playoff format yet again, most notably by scrapping starting strokes at East Lake. The 30 players in the field would start the week on a level playing field. Old-school golf: lowest score over 72 holes wins.

Fleetwood had come up empty in 163 previous PGA Tour starts. But in Atlanta on Sunday, he would not be denied. Even in the face of a couple of shaky swings and panicky thoughts on the front nine, he made three birdies and turned in 33. Fleetwood opened the second nine with a wicked hook into the left rough and made bogey, but rebounded with birdies at 12 and 13.

By 18, it was all but over: with a three-shot advantage over his closest pursuer — his playing partner Patrick Cantlay — Fleetwood could play the 72nd hole as conservatively as he liked. He coolly parred the par-5, signed for a two-under 68 for the day and 18-under 262 for the week. No whiteboard explainer required. Fleetwood was your Tour Championship winner and FedEx Cup champion.

Still, inquiring minds couldn’t help wonder, would he have been the champ if starting strokes were still in place this year?

Impossible to say, of course, but, for what it’s worth, if strokes had been allotted at the beginning of the week and the field had posted the same scores that it did, Scheffler — who would have had a five-shot lead over Fleetwood to start the week — would have prevailed by one over Fleetwood. We acknowledge this is a silly exercise given that Fleetwood surely would have played the closing stretch differently if he knew he was chasing. However, there’s still little doubt that the new format benefited Fleetwood.

Just ask Fleetwood.  

“A nice rule change this year,” he said with a wry smile on the NBC broadcast moments after winning, before adding, “I’ve been a PGA Tour winner for a long time — it’s just always been in my mind. To finally do it in reality feels great.”

The wild nature of Fleetwood winning his first PGA Tour title and the FedEx Cup on the same Sunday was not lost on him. As he’d said earlier in the week, “I think it would be pretty funny if I won this week and then got the FedExCup as well.”

Funny, sure — but also lucrative.

Fleetwood’s double was good for $10 million, which pushed his season haul to more than $18 million. Not bad for a one-win year.