The “Rory Rule?” Give me a break!

In an article by Golfweek’s Adam Schupak, the writer refers to Rory McIlroy’s decision to skip this week’s FedEx St. Jude Championship, the first of three post-season playoff events, as damaging to the PGA Tour and to the credibility of the FedEx Cup Playoff system as a whole.

What’s more, Schupak has players such as Peter Malnati – ranked 179th in the FedEx Rankings this year, and with more than $10 million in career PGA Tour earnings – backing him up, saying he’s “very concerned,” that some of the top players might opt to skip playoff events. As a Player Director on the PGA Tour Policy Board, Malnati’s concerns are valid, and if several others follow Rory’s lead and opt to skip playoff events in the future then it would undoubtedly be damaging for the FedEx Cup Playoffs as a whole, but it’s the PGA Tour itself and not McIlroy that he should be concerned with.

I’ve thrown plenty of criticism in McIlroy’s direction when I felt it was warranted, but this is one occasion where I’m firmly behind the world number two.

So let me make it crystal clear. Rory McIlroy is not making a mockery of the FedEx Cup, because the PGA Tour have spent the best part of two decades making a mockery of the FedEx Cup.

The FedEx Cup first came into our lives in 2007 – that’s 18 years ago for anybody struggling with the math – and it’s safe to say that the PGA Tour hierarchy – several versions of it – have struggled to get it right.

Actually, as we gear up for the 19th edition, you could argue that it’s never been more wrong.

Back in 2007, Tiger Woods skipped the first of what was four playoff events, but still finished second, first and first in the remaining three, being crowned inaugural FedEx Cup champion at the end.

But in that system – where the points were reset meaning anybody in the top five could’ve won the FedEx Cup so long as they won at East Lake – Tiger could’ve won every single event he played up to the Tour Championship but finished runner-up had the number five ranked player beaten him by a shot.

That was a joke, and everybody knew it.

So it was tweaked, and tweaked again. Then it was tweaked some more, and after a couple of seasons, tweaked further. Then, in the aftermath of Tiger’s victory at the Tour Championship in 2018 – his first PGA Tour win in over five years – and where Justin Rose’s FedEx Cup triumph was relegated to an effective footnote, they decided that whoever won the Tour Championship had to be crowned FedEx Cup champion.

So rather than tweak it once more, they opted for a radical overhaul, bringing in the staggered start. Anybody with an ounce of sense saw this for the ridiculous idea that it was, but after six attempts, the penny finally dropped and the handicap format shelved.

And what do they put in it’s place? A system where any of the top 30 players in rankings after the BMW Championship can be crowned FedEx Cup Champion. At least in 2007, there were only four others who could’ve usurped Tiger if he’d won all there was to win before the Tour Championship. This year, there are 28 players who can have one good week and finish above Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy, who have been the two standout players by a distance.

So no, Rory is not making a mockery of the FedEx Cup playoffs, because you can’t mock something that’s beyond farcical anyway.

I haven’t even mentioned the fact that changing the FedEx Cup to August to avoid clashing with the NFL in September has changed the major championship scheduling for the worse, so I’ll throw that in here. Eight months was already a long time to wait between the PGA Championship and the Masters, but it was manageable, and it gave the PGA Championship an identity in being ‘Glory’s Last Shot’. Now, nine months between the Open Championship and the Masters seems interminable, and the PGA Championship’s status as a distant fourth of four is cemented.

So Rory doesn’t fancy teeing it up in Memphis in August? Who can blame him? It’s ridiculously hot, ridiculously humid, and the most memorable thing from recent editions of the FedEx St Jude Championship was Lucas Glover’s ‘Swamp Ass’ moment. He wasn’t the only player to have a river of sweat running through his underpants, you can guarantee that, he just might’ve been the only one foolish enough to wear grey trousers on the day.

In the height of summer, areas such as the Northeast, or Pacific Northwest are much more ideal venues for tournaments, for players, and for the general spectators paying in.

But FedEx headquarters are in Memphis, and as long as their corporate guests are able to quaff down chilled beer, cocktails and champagne in their air-conditioned hospitality suites, then who cares. You’ve still got 69 of the top-70 ranked players there because they want the money, the points, or both.

Rory is something of an outlier because he’s already wealthy beyond imagine, he’s already guaranteed to be in the Tour Championship field, even if he opted to skip next week’s BMW Championship as well, and he might be the only player in the field to whom another PGA Tour victory changes next to nothing, though Scottie Scheffler is rapidly joining him on that boat.

And in a fortnight’s time, it’ll be on to Atlanta, to East Lake, and to Coca Cola’s base where the process will be repeated for Coke – another of the PGA Tour’s long-time ‘partners’ – and their high-powered clientele. Rinse, and repeat.

Look, I get it. There’s a ‘give and take’ relationship with sponsors, and McIlroy’s absence is certainly a drawback for the FedEx St. Jude Championship, but that doesn’t mean we have to care, and as long as the players aren’t contracted to appear, don’t expect them to care either.

Schupak argues that the PGA Tour’s new CEO, Brian Rolapp, should mandate that all players who qualify must be present at each of the playoff events if they’re to be eligible to play in the next, and that he should call it the “Rory Rule.”

I say kudos to Rory for seeing the FedEx Cup Playoffs and the current format for the steaming pile of sh*t they really are.

I’d rather he comes back to Europe a little fresher for the Irish Open, for the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth, and is raring to go when he touches down in New York with the European Ryder Cup team in late September.

That’s what really matters.