Bracket at Tour Championship? Here’s perfect solution for PGA Tour finale at East Lake

A report from The Athletic indicated that the Tour Championship will likely implement another format change, so we offered a solution.

Even though the 2025 PGA Tour season has only just begun in Maui, the attention of the golf world immediately turned to the Tour Championship — the final event of the year.

Gabby Herzig of The Athletic revealed on Friday that the tour aims to overhaul the Tour Championship into a bracket-style event, a stark departure from the “Starting Strokes” format currently utilized at East Lake. Her report also noted that officials are weighing both stroke play and match play as options while considering the possibility of players earning a “bye” based on their FedEx Cup positioning ahead of the season finale.

The current iteration of the format is a polarizing topic among players, notably Scottie Scheffler, who has called it “silly” in the past. The current format employs a “handicap-like” system, which awards strokes to players depending on their FedEx Cup ranking upon arrival in Atlanta. The top-ranked player begins at 10-under, while the second-ranked player starts at 8-under. Whoever arrives in Atlanta ranked third in the standings begins the tournament at 7-under, the fourth at 6-under, and the fifth at 5-under. Those between sixth and 10th in the rankings begin at 4-under, and so on, while players ranked between 26th and 30th start at even par. You get the point.

Yet, this format does not create much drama or allow many players to move up the leaderboard. Scheffler dominated the Tour Championship this past year, turning the final 36 holes into a coronation for his historic season rather than a dramatic golf tournament, which fans want to see. He started with a two-shot cushion at 10-under and held a seven-shot lead by the end of round one. It was all but over by then.

Hence, we have an ideal solution that will improve the finale. It involves stroke play, match play, and byes.

Tour Championship Bracket Format:

The top 30 players in the FedEx Cup standings will still make their way to East Lake. But the eight players who sit atop the rankings will receive a bye directly into the Round of 16. Using the 2024 rankings as a guide, these eight players would earn a bye:

1. Scottie Scheffler

2. Xander Schauffele

3. Hideki Matsuyama

4. Keegan Bradley

5. Ludvig Åberg

6. Rory McIlroy

7. Collin Morikawa

8. Wyndham Clark

All eight players had terrific 2024 campaigns, so they deserved a reward for their exquisite play. They are also the whos-who of the PGA Tour, each being quite popular beyond the golfing world. Television ratings usually soar when popular players are involved, so having these eight players directly go to the Round of 16 would help enhance the broadcast over the weekend. Sponsors would also be delighted to know that the likes of Scheffler, Xander Schauffele, and Rory McIlroy would be a part of the story on Saturday and Sunday, possibly vying for a FedEx Cup title.

But what about the other 22 players?

On Thursday of Tour Championship week, the bottom 22 players in the standings will vie for the 16 spots in the first round of the bracket. They will play one 18-hole stroke play round to determine who advances, meaning the bottom six players from this round will head home early. That would create some drama, not unlike what unfolds around a Friday cut, right?

Given that 22 is an even number, the tour will send out 11 groups of twosomes during this round.

The 16 players who advance will then square off against each other, based on how they finished in the stroke play qualifier. The lowest score will earn the 9th seed, the second lowest score will receive the 10th seed, while the third best will get the 11th, and so on. The 16th-best score will become the 24th seed and will face the 9th seed in match play. The winner of that match would then advance to play the 8th seed in the Round of 16.

Here’s how First Round matches would look like, which are based on the FedEx Cup standings after this past year’s BMW Championship:

9. Sam Burns vs 24. Matthieu Pavon (Winner plays 8. Wyndham Clark)

10. Patrick Cantlay vs. 23. Sepp Straka (Winner plays 7. Collin Morikawa)

11. Sungjae Im vs. 22. Tommy Fleetwood (Winner plays 6. Rory McIlroy)

12. Sahith Theegala vs. 21. Billy Horschel (Winner plays 5. Ludvig Åberg)

13. Shane Lowry vs. 20. Robert MacIntyre (Winner plays 4. Keegan Bradley)

14. Adam Scott vs. 19. Akshay Bhatia (Winner plays 3. Hideki Matsuyama)

15. Tony Finau vs. 18. Russell Henley (Winner plays 2. Xander Schauffele)

16. Byeong Hun An vs. 17. Viktor Hovland (Winner plays 1. Scottie Scheffler)

Each of these matches would have some juice and entertain fans worldwide. But here are the six players who failed to qualify for the 24-man bracket under this hypothetical:

25. Taylor Pendrith

26. Chris Kirk

27. Tom Hoge

28. Aaron Rai

29. Christiaan Bezuidenhout

30. Justin Thomas

Whoever wins their opening match then advances to the Round of 16, where the top 8 players in the standings enter the fray. From there, it’s a fight to the finish, a match-play bracket that determines the FedEx Cup Champion, not unlike what sports fans see every year in March Madness.

Best of all, match play is so unpredictable — like the NCAA Tournament — so who knows how the Tour Championship would finish utilizing this format. Would Scheffler get the job done? Or could someone like Viktor Hovland, who, along with Ludvig Åberg, famously defeated Scheffler and Brooks Koepka by a historic margin at the 2023 Ryder Cup, knock off the top-ranked player and go on a historic run to the title? That’s the fun element of this idea: you could have the pre-tournament favorite stave off the competition or see a Cinderella dance their way to victory.

As for the order of play, the schedule would look like this:

Thursday: 18-hole Qualifier (Bottom 22 players vie for 16 spots in bracket)

Friday: Round 1 of Match Play (Seeds 9 through 24)

Saturday Morning: Round of 16 of Match Play (Top 8 seeds now play)

Saturday Afternoon: Quarterfinal Round of 8

Sunday Morning: Semifinal Matches

Sunday Afternoon: Final Match

What do you make of this idea? It sounds much better than the current “Starting Strokes” format, right? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Jack Milko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. Follow him on X @jack_milko.