FedExCup points will be awarded differently among designated, regular events
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – There are still plenty of details to be flushed out before the PGA Tour unveils exactly what the 2024 schedule and its 16 designated events look like, but there’s one piece of the complicated – and contentious – puzzle that fell into place this week.
At a player-only meeting early Tuesday at TPC Sawgrass, Tour officials walked about 50 members through the new schedule, the adjusted qualification criteria and, perhaps most importantly, how FedExCup points will be adjusted for the new designated reality.
Starting next year, the Tour will showcase 16 designated events that include the four majors, The Players Championship, three playoff events and eight additional tournaments that will feature limited fields (70 to 80 players) and no cuts. The winners of those “other” designated events – which will include the Genesis Invitational, Arnold Palmer Invitational, Memorial and five other tournaments that have not been announced – will receive 700 FedExCup points compared to 500 points for the winner of non-designated events.
Full-field tee times The Players Championship
According to a “recommended” points distribution chart that was presented to players at Tuesday’s meeting, that points gap is consistent throughout the top 20, with designated events awarding a total of 4,475 points across the top 20 finishes compared to 2,217 points at full-field, non-designated events.
To put that in context, a player could finish alone in fourth place at a non-designated event, like the Honda Classic or next week’s Valspar Championship, and earn fewer points (135) than a player who finishes in solo 10th at a designated event (175), like last week’s stop at Bay Hill.
That number drops even more for opposite-field events, with 1,274 points distributed among the top 20 and 300 points for the winner.
The Tour has also recommended an increase in the number of points available at major championship and, presumably The Players, to 750 points for the winner and a total of 4,525 distributed to the top 20 finishers.
The points gap is glaring for some as the Tour pushes the narrative that the new schedule will incentivize the top players to participate in the designated events while maintaining pathways for players to play their way into those bigger events via the points list.
The point deferential is particularly important for those who question the Tour’s claim that the current “churn” rate among the top 50 – which is roughly 40 to 60 percent of players dropping outside that number each season – will be skewed by the increased points awarded at designated events.
“They firmly believe, mathematically, that the spread or the turnaround in the top 50 will be consistent with this structure as it has been in the past,” said Kevin Streelman, who is among the 16-member Players Advisory Council. “We’ll see how that goes. We’ll see what the retention rate is. If it’s 85 percent [stay inside the top 50] next year then I think they’re going to have some answering to do, but if it stays at 60 [percent] then it will be a good result.”