Tour Championship preview 🏆

It’s not a major, but the winner of this week’s Tour Championship will take home $18 million.

That’s 4x more than the next highest PGA Tour payout at the Players Championship, where this year’s top finisher, Scottie Scheffler, won $4.5 million.

So, plenty is on the line this week at Atlanta’s East Lake Golf Club.

Let’s get into it…

1. Staggered start

The Tour Championship is the culmination of the PGA Tour season and FedEx Cup Playoffs. It’s also the only tournament all year with a staggered start.

Essentially, players have been gathering FedEx Cup points all season long. And now, at the Tour Championship, they’re assigned starting scores based on their current FedEx Cup point positions.

Here’s how the top 30 players will head into Thursday:

Sanity check: The winner of this week’s Tour Championship will also be the winner of the FedEx Cup.

• But it wasn’t always this way. For instance, when Tiger won the Tour Championship in 2018 (more on that later), Justin Rose won the overall FedEx Cup.

• In 2019, with the introduction of the staggered start format, the possibility of having two different winners went away.

2. How far is too far back?

Here’s where the last four Tour Championship winners started on Thursday since the format change in 2019:

• 2022: Rory McIlroy -4 (6 shots back)

• 2021: Patrick Cantlay -10 (leader)

• 2020: Dustin Johnson -10 (leader)

• 2019: Rory McIlroy -5 (5 shots back)

Quick take: So, if you’re starting at -4 like Max Homa, Patrick Cantlay, Brian Harman, Wyndham Clark, or Matt Fitzpatrick, you might have a shot to win this week. But just barely.

3. State of the Tour

PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan gave his annual State of the Tour address at East Lake on Tuesday, fielding questions from reporters mainly tied to negotiations with the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia (also known as, the PIF).

Catch up quick: In June, the PGA Tour, Europe’s DP World Tour, and the PIF (backers of LIV Golf), entered into a vague, “framework agreement,” that would end litigation between the groups and kickstart discussions about a new, potential entity formed by the three parties.

• Details surrounding the new entity (literally named “NewCo.”) are unclear. Even big questions like — Will LIV (as we know it today) exist in a year? — remain unanswered.

• What we do know is that there’s a December 31 deadline for all parties to sign a more definitive agreement. And on the topic of timing, Monahan said Tuesday that he doesn’t have “any reason to think that we won't be successful.”

Phrase of the day: The commissioner’s favorite catch phrase on Tuesday was “positive outcome.” He said it five times.

• At one point a reporter asked Monahan point blank, “What is a positive outcome for the PGA Tour?” To which he replied: “It is the PGA Tour partnering with PIF [but having]… operational control of the Tour and ultimately the men's professional game moving forward.”

A couple more notes from Monahan’s talk:

• Having more capital (from investors like the PIF) could cut down on TV commercials during events, he said.

• On the topic of returning to Maui after the recent devastation there, Monahan said he’s “absolutely” committed to keeping the Sentry Tournament of Champions at Kapalua in January, but “at this point there's so many unknowns, and we want to be respectful of the challenges.”

4. Rory’s great at East Lake. But so is Xander.

Rory has a reputation for dominating at East Lake, and rightfully so. Besides his come-from-behind wins in 2022 and 2019, he also won in Atlanta in 2016.

That makes Rory the only three-time Tour Championship winner at East Lake. (Tiger has three Tour Championship crowns, but he won his first in 1999 at the Champions Golf Course in Houston, Texas.)

With Rory’s favorable starting position this year (-7), it’s no wonder his odds to win are second only to Scheffler’s.

Yes, but: As golf data analyst Rick Gehman pointed out in his newsletter this week, Rory isn’t the player to have consistent success around East Lake.

In fact, with 24 rounds under his belt, Xander Schauffele is gaining more strokes per round in Atlanta (1.81) than Rory (1.44). Granted, Rory has played 12 more rounds at East Lake than Xander. But it’s impressive nonetheless, especially given Xander’s win at the Tour Championship in 2017.

Two other players in the field this week have higher total strokes gained numbers than Rory — Max Homa and Russell Henley. Though, they’ve only played East Lake four and eight times, respectively.

The bottom line: If you’re betting at all this week, the chart above can help you understand how players have fared at East Lake in prior years.

5. The case for Scottie Scheffler

It’s sometimes hard wrap your head around how historic Scottie Scheffler’s play has been this year, but these two graphics do a pretty darn good job.

And…

6. What do you think?

7. Five years ago…

It’s been five years since Tiger’s improbable win at the 2018 Tour Championship. At the time, it was his 80th Tour victory and first win since 2013.

He would win again the following year, of course, at Augusta. ❤️

Watch and enjoy:

8. How to watch the Tour Championship

Thursday-Friday: 10am -3 pm PT, Golf Channel

Saturday: 10am-noon PT, Golf Channel / noon-4pm PT, CBS

Sunday: 9am-10:30am PT, Golf Channel / 10:30am-3pm PT, CBS

9. Photo to go: Golf sicko’s dream

Love, love, love everything about this…

Thanks for reading and see you on Friday! - Nick