Scottie Scheffler hits out at ‘silly’ FedEx Cup

Under a normal set of conditions, Scottie Scheffler would have won any other ‘season-long’ competition out of the park long ago.

The world No.1 has had a banner year in 2024, winning six times on the PGA Tour. That haul includes the Masters and the PLAYERS Championship.

However, the FedEx Cup has never bowed to a ‘normal set of conditions’.

The end-of-season playoffs are engineered in such a way that any of the 30 players who makes it to the Tour Championship has a mathematical chance of winning the PGA Tour’s year-long crown.

And as far as Scheffler is concerned, that’s a little bit daft.

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Speaking ahead of this week’s FedEx St Jude Championship – the first of three events that bring the curtain down on the PGA Tour season – the 28-year-old was asked for his thoughts on the FedEx Cup format.

“I think it’s silly,” said Scheffler. “You can’t call it a season-long race and have it come down to one tournament.

“Hypothetically, we get to East Lake [for the Tour Championship] and my neck flares up and it doesn’t heal the way it did at THE PLAYERS, I finish 30th in the FedExCup because I had to withdraw from the last tournament?

“Is that really the season-long race? No. It is what it is.”

He added: “It’s a fun tournament. I don’t really consider it the season-long race like I think the way it’s called. But you’ve got to figure out a way to strike a balance between it being a good TV product and it still being a season-long race.

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“Right now, I don’t know exactly how the ratings are or anything like that, but I know for a fact you can’t really quite call it the season-long race when it comes down to one stroke play tournament on the same golf course each year.”

Considering his misgivings, it’s no surprise that Scheffler says he won’t judge his year based on where he finishes on the FedEx Cup standings.

“I try not to think too much about the results at tournaments, and I’m not going to look back on my season really any differently if I don’t win East Lake,” he added. “I’m going to show up there and do my best. I think I’ve been No.1 the last two years going into the tournament. I went in 2022 having a really great chance to win and I wasn’t able to pull it off, and last year I really just played poorly pretty much the entire week.”

“I’ve had close calls there, and I’m looking forward to the challenge of going back there and playing with the lead again. We’ll see what happens.”

Michael McEwan is the Deputy Editor of bunkered and has been part of the team since 2004. In that time, he has interviewed almost every major figure within the sport, from Jack Nicklaus, to Rory McIlroy, to Donald Trump. The host of the multi award-winning bunkered Podcast and a member of Balfron Golfing Society, Michael is the author of three books and is the 2023 PPA Scotland 'Writer of the Year' and 'Columnist of the Year'. Dislikes white belts, yellow balls and iron headcovers. Likes being drawn out of the media ballot to play Augusta National.

Deputy Editor