Every August since 2007, as the PGA Tour comes to a close, the FedEx Cup takes place. August 7-10 is the FedEx St. Jude Championship at the Tournament Players Club (TPC) Southwind in Memphis, Tennessee. August 14-17 is the BMW Championship at Caves Valley Golf Club in Baltimore, Maryland. The Tour Championship is August 21-24 at the newly renovated East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, Georgia.
The 2025 FedEx St. Jude ended in a playoff between Justin Rose and JJ Spaun. Rose defeated Spaun on the third playoff hole, making it his 12th PGA Tour Win. Scottie Scheffler had a comeback victory at the BMW Championship, adding to his historic season with five wins, including two majors and 26 million dollars. Most recently, Tommy Fleetwood won the Tour Championship.
Fleetwood’s win at East Lake was his first-ever PGA Tour win; this is why some people are upset about him winning the FedEx Cup when Scottie Scheffler was the outright overall winner in the FedEx Cup points race. Scottie was so dominant that he was ahead of second place, Rory McIlroy, by more than 1,300 points. The FedEx Playoff format has been changing since it was introduced in 2007. The first flaw was in 2008, when Vijay Singh won the FedEx Cup before he teed off at the Tour Championship. In 2019, the PGA Tour introduced the “starting strokes” format, this format gave players starting strokes based on their FedEx Cup Points rank. The leader was awarded ten starting strokes. Second place got eight strokes, third got seven, fourth got six, and so forth through to twenty-sixth through thirty started at even par. Golf.com’s Alan Bastable said, “Giving Scheffler a ten-shot lead is like giving Noah Lyles a 30-meter head start in the 100-meter dash. Good luck catching him.” No one caught Scottie. In May 2025, the PGA Tour decided to change the rule, and now all thirty players start at even par, and the Tour Championship is played as a normal 72-hole tournament.
Fleetwood had come up empty in his 163 previous PGA Tour starts and had finished in second place seven times. “A nice rule change this year,” he said with a smile on the NBC broadcast moments after winning. He continued, “I’ve been a PGA Tour winner for a long time; it’s just always been in my mind. To finally do it in reality feels great.” No player has ever won his first PGA Tour title and the FedEx Cup on the same Sunday. Fleetwood was interviewed earlier in the week about the removal of starting strokes, “I (Fleetwood) think it would be pretty funny if I won this week and then got the FedExCup as well (pgatour.com).”
There is no doubt that the controversial rule changed the Tour Championship and the FedEx Cup Playoffs. Scottie Scheffler supported the PGA Tour’s decision to eliminate starting strokes. Scheffler said he “didn’t love the previous format,” and preferred a more traditional 72-hole stroke play event where all players start at even par. If Scottie had started ten under, he would have defeated Fleetwood by a stroke and won back-to-back FedEx Cups. The change benefited players, like Tommy Fleetwood, outside of the top ten, and leveled the playing field. Although Tommy Fleetwood has only one PGA Tour win, he has always challenged the best of the best. Fleetwood has been part of the Ryder Cup several times for Team Europe, including 2018, 2021, 2023, and soon to be 2025.
