In March we discuss whether men's golf needs a fifth Major before moving on to May where we question the PGA Championship's lack of identity and its spot in the golfing schedule.
It's now August, which means we question the FedEx Cup Playoffs format - and that's exactly what I'll being doing.
The FedEx Cup Playoffs format has changed this year to get rid of the manufactured starting strokes, where the leader began the final tournament at 10-under-par. This made things confusing and was also unfair on the player leading the FedEx Cup heading into the Tour Championship.
A single out-of-bounds tee shot or early double bogey and suddenly the lead they had worked all season to build would have disappeared. It's something Scottie Scheffler labelled as "silly" last year.
It also caused confusion over who won the actual tournament. Scottie Scheffler is credited with the 2025 Tour Championship even though Collin Morikawa shot the lowest 72-hole score.
Look it up on the PGA Tour website and it will tell you that Scheffler won, whereas the Official World Golf Ranking site has Morikawa as the 72-hole victor credited with the winner's share of points.
Collin Morikawa shot the lowest 72-hole score at East Lake last year
For 2025, the top 30 will make it to East Lake and the man who shoots the lowest score over 72 holes will earn the right to call themselves FedEx Cup champion - which essentially earns you the label as the PGA Tour's champion golfer of the year.
It means that the player entering the week in 30th position can get hot for four days and lift the trophy, which certainly adds some intrigue to the event but is grossly unfair on Scheffler, who is almost 1,400 points clear at the top of the FedEx Cup standings.
That's part of the reason why Scheffler was rewarded with $18m this past week from both the FedEx Cup standings and Comcast Business Tour Top 10.
Scheffler has a big lead at the top of the FedEx Cup standings after four wins this year, including two Majors
Regular tournaments offer 500 points to the winner whereas the points are quadrupled during the first two Playoffs events, meaning Scheffler could be overtaken over the next two weeks.
The World No.1 could, as he has said before, pull a muscle on Thursday morning of Tour Championship week, be forced to withdraw from the tournament and end up finishing 30th in the year's FedEx Cup.
It makes a mockery of the actual sporting competition. It is contrived to try and create excitement, when that is really not needed.
The PGA Tour season finishes in August when all of the four men's Majors are over, which are the four big events that fans of the men's game care most about.
NBC averaged 2.7m viewers for last year's Tour Championship, with CBS bringing in 3.1m in 2023. That 2.7m figure was down 800,000 on the 3.5m pulled in for The Players Championship - which illustrates that the PGA Tour's most important single franchise is The Players Championship and not the FedEx Cup Playoffs.
No matter what format is used, the FedEx Cup finale will likely not move the needle in terms of TV ratings
For us golf nerds who watch every week, we don't need a contrived format to tune into the Tour Championship, and we don't need the FedEx Cup race to go right until the death.
A contrived format isn't suddenly going to boost the TV ratings by millions as the casual mass-viewing public by-and-large switch off of golf once the final putt drops at The Open, as sad as that is.
Which is why I believe the FedEx Cup should be decided by purely sporting merit and go to whoever has earned the most points that year.
This year it should go to Scottie Scheffler regardless of what happens over the next three weeks, unless Rory McIlroy went win-win-win - which he won't considering he is skipping the FedEx St Jude Championship.
McIlroy is skipping week one of the Playoffs
McIlroy's decision to skip the first week is completely understandable and justified - even if Peter Malnati is "very concerned" - but it does not reflect well on the PGA Tour's season finale.
The World No.2 knows that all he has to do is finish inside the top 30 prior to the Tour Championship and considering he is 2nd in the standings, he has no need to play this week.
I believe that LIV Golf gets it right with how its individual title is handed out. The points distribution remains the same all year (40 for a win, 30 for second for example), even at the individual finale, which is exactly the same as how it works in F1 and the Premier League.
Granted, it doesn't create the most drama every single year but one year it could, as we saw in F1's now-infamous Abu Dhabi race in 2021.
Last year's LIV finale saw Rahm and Niemann battle it out for the individual title based on their easy-to-understand points system
Last year on LIV Golf, the individual $18m title could only be won by Jon Rahm and Joaquin Niemann come the final event and that was how it should have been because they were the best two players that year.
I do like the 70-50-30 cut-offs in the FedEx Cup Playoffs and that is something that should continue, and perhaps these are the tournaments that carry those big $20-$25m purses.
I have written time and time again on how Signature Event model is flawed, but perhaps limited-field, no-cut events for huge money is absolutely fine in the Playoffs as the players will have earned their way into them come the end of the season.
My ideal FedEx Cup Playoffs would be to keep the sporting merit intact with perhaps only slightly elevated points payouts. If 500 goes to regular tournament winners then why not increase the winner's share to 750 points instead of 2000?
It means the no.1 player isn't at a disadvantage and those in the pack are rewarded more rationally for peaking at the right time.
Cameron Young could theoretically overtake Rory McIlroy and move up to 2nd this week with a win, which seems absurd when you consider that McIlroy has won a Signature Event (AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am), The Players Championship and The Masters this year.
Cameron Young could overtake Rory McIlroy this week with a win - which seems wrong
If 750 points were on offer, Young could move up to around 8th or 9th this week, which feels about right.
But while we're talking about points and position in the standings, it all becomes irrelevant come Thursday morning of the Tour Championship as everything resets to zero.
The man in 30th position can go and win the 72-hole tournament to become FedEx Cup champion.
This makes me wonder what is trying to be achieved with the FedEx Cup?
Is it to crown the PGA Tour's best player of the year? Or is it an end-of-year silly season to try and create excitement and whoever wins, wins?
I believe the FedEx Cup should be awarded based on sporting merit, not contrived last-minute drama
It feels like the latter, whereas I believe the tour is based on tradition, meritocracy and prestige so is far better off to award the Tour Championship winner with the Tour Championship title and the FedEx Cup points winner the FedEx Cup.
It might not be the most exciting or dramatic but that is absolutely fine.
The Tour Championship is a prestigious and historic tournament in its own right and should stand on its own with the FedEx Cup race running alongside it.
Let me know your thoughts in the comments section below
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