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The Tour Championship is not really a tournament anymore.
They are organizing something bigger and better at East Lake in Atlanta this week, something completely different.
They host the FedExCup Finale.
Really, the PGA circuit should rename this week's event in the same way, because keeping the "Tour Championship" goes on foolish conventions that clash with traditional sensibilities. After all, you do not start a tournament with an advance of seven or more shots on two-thirds of the court, as Justin Thomas would do.
But the FedExCup Finale? Yeah, you're absolutely right, you can start this with an advance, even a 10-stroke lead over part of the field.
It's because it's more than a "tournament" now.
It is too big an idea to be confined to this definition, a concept too big to be chained to this limited construction.
This is how this revised format should be sold.
We all need more than a reset to understand that this week is the continuation of a long competition of a season, the last stage of golf in the playoffs.
We need a mental wipe.
This will help us all to take advantage of this new version of FedExCup Playoffs.
While golf will always be a square element in a round hole as are the playoff concepts, the new PGA Tour format is as close as it was to succeed. Most of the time, we can attribute this to the fact that the Tour gets rid of points and decides to use only traits to determine the FedExCup winner.
"The beauty here lies in the simplicity," said PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan, announcing the new format last year.
Amen, Commish.
More points mean. . .
No need for a calculator to know who is at the top of the projected ranking.
No more headaches trying to look at two dashboards, no more problems knowing who leads the Tour Championship and who is leading the FedExCup rankings. Now they are only one, although the winner will be credited with an official PGA Tour victory.
Glory, Hallelujah, to all this.
Now, Sunday will prove to be less infuriating and More fun?
We do not know yet. We do not know if the changes will add more drama. If Thomas puts 61 more this week, as he did at the BMW Championship last week, he could aspire to excitement.
We are grateful for the changes that were not introduced last year, when Tiger Woods won the Tour Championship and Justin Rose won the FedEx Cup.
With this new format in place last year, Woods would have won nothing.
Imagine the indignation that this would have caused.
And if Brooks Koepka has a total of 267 shots this week, placing him at 20 under with his faltering start (7 under). And if Thomas shoots 269 and wins the FedExCup at 21 cents, with his offbeat start (10 cents)?
Certainly, we, the media, will point out that Koepka would have won the Tour Championship as a 72-hole event, before the ghost hits were included in the totals. We will then note that Koepka won the PGA Championship, a world championship golf and the classic sense of the circuit championship this year, but Thomas claimed the FedExCup while he actually won only one tournament all the season.
That's why it's best to change the name of this week's event to FedExCup Finale, to begin mental erasure as soon as possible, to help fans understand that there's really no more Tour Championship to win. There is a winning draw final, where it is useful to have won pole position in the playoffs.
Yes, it is still possible to make changes to pole position at East Lake, also to help the four big championship winners get to the finals, but this observer starts the week recognizing that we will all know what leaders must do. go around to win the FedExCup, including the players themselves.
The tour leaders did a great service to us saying that we had a good stall in points.
And now, they can make another one of us by saying that we must rid the name of "Tour Championship".
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