Rory: Playoffs can ‘flip the script’ in year marked by misses, Scheffler dominance

PGA Tour players will have a difficult decision to make this fall when it comes to the Player of the Year vote.

Viktor Hovland said Tuesday that he would take Xander Schauffele’s two-major season.

On Wednesday, Rory McIlroy countered that Scottie Scheffler’s campaign has been more impressive: “Winning the Masters, an Olympic gold medal, six times (overall on Tour), it’s pretty hard to top that.”

And under the old FedExCup format, sure, Scheffler would be almost a shoe-in to take home the season-long FedExCup title, too. Entering this week’s playoff opener, the FedEx St. Jude Championship, Scheffler has more than a 1,900-point lead in the standings.

But with the staggered-start format in place since 2019, Scheffler can get caught this week since there are 2,000 points up for grabs for the tournament winner. And even if he goes win-win to start the playoffs, he would enter the Tour Championship with just a two-shot lead. Scheffler has never won at East Lake, and it’ll be a new test for everyone in the 30-man field this year after the course was recently renovated.

This is all good news for McIlroy, already the only player with three FedExCup titles who enters the postseason as the No. 3 seed.

“I love this format because if it wasn’t this format, then none of us would have a chance against Scottie because he’s so far ahead,” McIlroy said with a laugh.

Later, he added, “I think it makes the Tour Championship more exciting from a consumer standpoint. Is it the fairest reflection of who’s been the best player of the year? Probably not. But I think at this point we’re not in for totally fair – we’re in for entertainment and for trying to put on the best product we possibly can.”

McIlroy’s Tour season might be winding down, but he still has a busy stretch left – he’s playing upwards of eight or nine more tournaments before the end of the year. Even though he blew a chance to end his decade-long major-less drought at the U.S. Open, and he missed on a medal at the Olympics, McIlroy said he views the FedExCup playoffs as a chance to “flip the script or change the narrative” for what the season means to him.

“I think that’s a motivating factor,” he said, “and part of the reason that I’ve probably played well in the playoffs for the last three years.”