'It's A Bit Too Much' - Fitzpatrick On 'Unfair' FedEx Cup Playoffs

Matt Fitzpatrick has spoken out on the scoring system of the FedEx Cup Playoffs following last week’s opener, the FedEx St. Jude Championship. 

Will Zalatoris’ win saw him jump from 12th to top of the standings, and Sepp Strata, who finished runner-up, moved from 36th to eighth going into this week’s BMW Championship. However, those huge leaps don’t sit comfortably with Fitzpatrick. He said: "For me, the Playoffs, you can play pretty decent, and you can miss out on this week or you can miss out on next week, and you've probably been a little bit hard done to by how you've played rest of the season. I'm like a little bit uneasy with that. I think like if you've played well all year, you deserve to be, you know, kind of at the top or where you deserve to be. I think the Playoffs can kind of throw that out a little bit, which is a little odd to me.”

Fitzpatrick finished tied for fifth last week, which saw him edge up the standings from 14th to 12th.  However, it was Straka’s huge leap to put himself firmly in contention to win the Playoffs that raised the most eyebrows. Prior to last week’s tournament, the Austrian had missed each of the last six cuts, although he did win the Honda Classic among three top-10 finishes in the regular season.

Nevertheless, had he won last week, he’d have topped the standings, and that’s a scenario Fitzpatrick said his coach had pointed out to him. He said: “My coach literally texted me that exact scenario. He said he can't believe that he's ahead of me. Yeah, I can accept it because I've had a great season and yeah, my reply was that I won the US Open, so I'm fine. I'm happy. Like that's fine. But yeah, it is difficult.”

Last year, the reverse happened when Collin Morikawa finished 26th in the FedEx Cup standings after having an excellent season that saw him rise to World No.3, and Fitzpatrick cited that as another example of what he sees as a flawed system. He said: “In my personal opinion, I think I was laughing last year at the scenario that Collin had such a fantastic season, and he finished outside the top 20 or something on the FedEx, and to me that's like unfair. 

"And then likewise this year, Scottie [Scheffler] has won four times, Cam [Smith] has won three times, and those seven events aren't, like, small events. They are some of the best events in the world, and they are behind Will now. Not taking it away from Will, but I think it's a bit too much. In my opinion, those two should be kind of running away with it and it's kind of a two-horse race, and now there's more people in the mix, which I get that's the whole point, the Playoffs, it's exciting. But as a player, when you've worked hard all season to then not be rewarded for the whole season performance, yeah, it is a tough one.”

Fitzpatrick starts the BMW Championship 1,735 points behind Zalatoris as he goes in search of his first FedEx Cup win to cap an excellent season that included his first Major win at the US Open.