PGA Tour announces Tour Championship to return to stroke-play format in 2025 after board vote

A major change is coming to the PGA Tour after five years of utilizing the starting-strokes format

The PGA Tour announced Tuesday a significant change to how the Tour Championship operates. Rather than continue using the starting-strokes model that has been in place since 2019, the final event of the season will operate in traditional stroke-play format. The change will be implemented immediately for the 2025 season following a vote by the PGA Tour policy board.

The Tour Championship will be played as a 72-hole event where all players will start at even par with the week's best performer being crowned the winner of the FedEx Cup. That is a change from the prior format, which gave golfers who finished higher in the FedEx Cup standings a negative strokes advantage entering the first round of the tournament.

Not only will the format change, so will the playing conditions at East Lake Golf Club -- the annual site of the Tour Championship. Heeding to the feedback received from the Fan Forward Initiative, the PGA Tour plans to set up the golf course in a more difficult manner in order to produce a winning score closer to par and encourage more risk-reward moments throughout the tournament.

"We want the Tour Championship to be the hardest tournament to qualify for and the FedExCup trophy the most difficult to win," said reigning Tour champion Scottie Scheffler. "Shifting the Tour Championship to a more straight-up format with a tougher course setup makes it easier for fans to follow and provides a more challenging test for players – which brings out the best competition."

Under the starting-strokes format, the top-ranked players started the tournament with sizable leads (the top-ranked player, for example, began the event at 10 under). The format had been been criticized in recent years with Scheffler previously calling it "silly." 

Scheffler, as the top-ranked player in the FedExCup standings, went onto win his first FedExCup title by four shots over Colin Morikawa, who started the tournament at 4 under. That victory netted Scheffler a whopping $25 million.

With the elimination of starting strokes, the FedExCup bonus distributions for the top 30 positions through the postseason finale will be balanced for 2025 to account for the increased volatility, reward season-long performance and recognize the significance of the FedExCup.

The Tour Championship's field is annually comprised of the PGA Tour's top 30 players based on points accrued throughout the season. The field size will remain at 30 players for this year's edition, but that number could be subject to change in future years. 

"Our Fan Forward initiative has helped us evaluate each part of the PGA Tour season and today's announcement is an important first step in the evolution of our postseason," PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan said in a statement. "The Player Advisory Council led a thorough process to respond to what our fans are asking for: The most competitive golf in the world, played for the highest stakes, in the most straightforward and engaging format."

While the change is significant, there is still an incentive for players to accumulate FedExCup points throughout the season. But without the added incentive of strokes, elite players that aren't in fear of falling out of the top 30 in the FedEx Cup points standings may miss more tournaments than in past years, including some in the playoffs. Rory McIlroy had previously mentioned this possibility; he will not play in his third signature event of the 2025 season when the Memorial Tournament begins on Thursday.