The Wyndham Championship, Cameron Young's maiden victory, officially closed the PGA Tour regular season.
The Playoffs kick off tomorrow, which, as we've seen, will see the Tour Championship play abandon the much-criticized starting strokes formula and return to pure stroke play.
The top 70 players in the rankings will take to the green at TPC Southwind in Memphis, after which the top 50 will fly to Maryland to play the BMW Championship at Caves Valley Golf Club.
Afterward, the top 30 will board the plane again to tee off on the first tee at the now legendary East Lake Golf Club to decide, first and foremost, who will lift the Tour Championship trophy and the FedEx trophy, and, last but not least, who will collect the prize money.
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Rory McIlroy, results
And it's precisely the prize pool that has been the subject of further changes by the PGA Tour.
This year's playoffs will distribute $100,000,000, divided by "snapshot" of the ranking at three different points.
The top 10 players in the rankings at the start of the first playoff (i.e., the one that starts today) will split $20 million, with $10 million going to the top-ranked player.
The magnificent thirty players who will take to the field in Atlanta, even before hitting the practice range, will split nearly $23 million, with $5 million going to the ranking leader after the BMW Championship.
The remainder of the prize pool ($57.08 million, to be precise to the penny) is earmarked for the Tour Championship, with a first-place prize of $10,000,000.
The rationale behind this scheme is to rebalance the prize pool distribution among all those who have reached the key moment of the season.
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And here's where I want to introduce the most gossipy part of the title.
Rory McIlroy, surprising everyone (primarily Peter Malnati, one of the Tour's player directors, who said he was "very concerned" about the Northern Irishman's decisionEditor's note), has announced his intention not to play in Memphis.
The reigning Masters Champion is currently second in the FedEx rankings with 3,444 points and essentially already has a ticket to East Lake in his pocket, as well as, based on the above, a significant share of the first tranche of the prize money.
Back in November, McIlroy told the Telegraph:
"I probably won't play the playoff in Memphis."
"This year (2024), I basically finished in the bottom 68 (Editor's note: T68) and lost a spot in the playoff rankings."
His confirmed absence deprives the first playoff stop of one of the Tour's stars, and it remains to be seen whether we will see McIlroy in action at the BMW Championship.
