Was Week One Of The FedExCup Playoffs 'Boring' And 'Stale'?
The team look back on the opening tournament of the FedExCup Playoffs in this week's Inside The Ropes...
'Inside The Ropes' is the chance for Golf Monthly's expert team to share its honest thoughts on the biggest subjects in the game. This time, we discuss our thoughts following the FedEx St. Jude Championship.
We're onto week two of the 2026 FedExCup Playoffs following Scottie Scheffler's dominant victory at TPC Southwind.
The World No.1 looked at his best as he breezed past the field in Memphis for a huge eight-stroke victory.
Scheffler remains no.1 in the rankings as some big names were eliminated like Jordan Spieth and Shane Lowry.
We move to Bellerive for the BMW Championship this week where the top 50 compete before just 30 qualify for the season-ending Tour Championship at East Lake.
So, what were our takeaways from week one of the Playoffs? Below, Golf Monthly's tour experts have their say, and let us know your thoughts in the comments section at the bottom of the page...
Do the players really care?
Yes, of course the players do care, they're competitors at heart...but clearly not all of them care enough. And that's a problem Brian Rolapp knows he needs to solve.
Rory McIlroy has just been vacationing and partying in Europe while most of the big names came into week one of the PGA Tour's most important stretch rusty after three weeks off.
The men's game is increasingly becoming more and more about the four Majors, and The Players Championship sits just behind those.
The Playoffs are a massive deal for the fringe players and journeymen, but are they really a huge deal for the tour's elite? I don't think so. Week one and two certainly don't seem to be for those who are safely inside the top 30, at least.
It's a 'bring your wheelbarrow' time for the top players, but they're all incredibly rich already after years of $20m Signature Events, Comcast Business Top 10s and Player Impact Program payouts.
Who can challenge Scheffler?
World No.2 McIlroy was understandably rusty after his time off, and it led to a leaderboard that looked like Scheffler vs a group of golfers firmly a tier below him.
Si Woo Kim, Sam Burns and Sungjae Im are all quality players, but none of them are close to matching the World No.1 at the minute. It feels like nobody in the world of golf can.
Where were Morikawa, Schauffele, Young, Hovland, Aberg and co.?
Right now, Scheffler really doesn't seem to have anyone truly challenging him at the top of the game on a consistent basis.
McIlroy and Schauffele have definitely had their moments in recent years while Young and Matt Fitzpatrick threatened earlier in the season, but it looks too easy for Scheffler currently.
He knows that if he plays well, he has nobody to worry about.
Jon Rahm certainly could run him close if he returned to the PGA Tour, and in fact a number of LIV players could increase the competition at the top of the game. Bryson DeChambeau, Joaquin Niemann, an in-form Cameron Smith and a handful of other players would make the PGA Tour far, far better.
So I guess my point is both that Scheffler is lacking challengers, and the PGA Tour continues to miss some of the players who left it for LIV.
A boring start to the Playoffs
I'll be honest, I found pretty much everything about the St. Jude Championship boring.
The course has never excited me and the reality is that whenever Scheffler has a sizeable lead atop a leaderboard, it's not really worth watching - I tend to follow on my phone and am primed to check back in if it gets close, which is rarely the case.
Given some of the amazing courses and events that populate the schedule from January to August, the St. Jude always tends to feel like a letdown, which is the exact opposite of what you want from the first Playoffs event.
I always enjoyed the Deutsche Bank Championship and would much rather see TPC Boston return to the schedule (even though it needs to be toughened up slightly). I think the three-event Playoffs structure is about right, but the choice of venue, no doubt influenced by commercial factors, lets it down.
As for Rory, there's no need to overanalzse his performance. If you've ever been to Ibiza, you'll know why he didn't bring his best golf to Memphis.
Stale.
The word stale comes to mind.
As a big NFL fan, I get very excited when the playoffs kick off in early January. The regular season all leads up to it and the level of intensity in the competition is notably higher, as are the stakes.
Meanwhile, on the PGA Tour, the second best golfer on planet earth has shown up to the first Playoffs event not-so-fresh off a month-long break where he spent more time partying in Ibiza than practising.
And why wouldn't McIlroy take a break? Major season is over and he's booked his place at the Tour Championship already.
The new-look PGA Tour schedule cannot come soon enough.
I imagine Brian Rolapp will share some more information on what this will look like in the coming weeks, but at least we know this tedious current format won't be continuing.
The Playoffs need life injected into them, and the best way to do this is to go the meccas of golf and introduce some sort of matchplay format, not a no-cut strokeplay event in the 100 degree heat of Memphis, Tennessee in August.
The entire PGA Tour format needs a serious rejig, but one benefit of the Playoffs being so bad is that Rolapp will face less pushback if he blows up the current model to start again from scratch.
The Playoffs need to be scheduled better
If the Playoffs are to be taken more seriously, then they need to be scheduled nearer to the final Major of the season. A three-week break where there are, and no offense to these smaller tournaments, isn't good enough.
Although I'm not a fan, I think LIV Golf gets the season-long standings correct in that, once there's a winner then that's it, the competition is done.
Either the Playoffs get removed completely from the golf calendar, or they're scheduled better in that we don't have such a long wait for them.
Given that the PGA Tour controls proceedings from January-August, and the DP World Tour from September-December, you could certainly adapt the schedule so that it works more smoothly.
Some of the top players have forgotten how to win
You can't deny that Scheffler is the dominant force in world golf right now and, looking at those in contention at the FedEx St. Jude Championship, it's baffling the timeframe of when some of them last won.
Si Woo Kim hasn't claimed a title since January 2023, while Sam Burns hasn't lifted a trophy since March 2023.
Going further, Sungjae Im hasn't won since October 2021, Hideki Matsuyama since January 2025, Ludvig Aberg hasn't tasted victory in 18 months and even Fleetwood hasn't won on the PGA Tour in a year.
They're producing solid result after solid result, but it seems that they have forgotten how to win. They know how to get into contention, but not how to get over the line.
Have some of the bigger names simply played better, or is it the case that the Sunday pressure is too much for them? Either way, it's time these caliber of players earned some silverware sooner rather than later.
What was your takeaway from the FedEx St. Jude Championship? Join the conversation below...