{"id":46388,"date":"2025-08-05T22:56:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T22:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/46388\/"},"modified":"2025-08-05T22:56:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T22:56:09","slug":"report-stuff-in-works-to-prevent-or-deter-rory-mcilroy-others-from-skipping-playoff-events","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/46388\/","title":{"rendered":"Report: &#8216;Stuff in works&#8217; to prevent or deter Rory McIlroy, others from skipping playoff events"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Rory McIlroy is the only absence from this week\u2019s 70-man FedEx St. Jude Championship, the PGA Tour\u2019s playoff opener at TPC Southwind in Memphis.<\/p>\n<p>McIlroy, at second in points behind Scottie Scheffler, is already guaranteed to qualify for both the BMW Championship and Tour Championship. And though the top 30 players in points after the BMW are paid out of the FedExCup bonus pool, McIlroy has a nearly 900,000-point cushion on No. 3 Sepp Straka while he\u2019s over 1.3 million points shy of Scheffler. In other words, McIlroy skipping one playoff event shouldn\u2019t affect his standing too much, if at all. Plus, he already collected $10 million in bonuses on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>Points also are meaningless once players arrive at East Lake, which has been reverted to traditional, 30-man stroke play.<\/p>\n<p>But is this what the Tour wants \u2013 its stars opting not to appear in playoff events?<\/p>\n<p>Peter Malnati, a player director on the Tour\u2019s policy board, <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/golfweek.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/golf\/pga\/2025\/08\/05\/pga-tour-to-close-fedex-cup-playoff-loophole-rory-mcilroy-skipping-fedex-st-jude-championship\/85503980007\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">told Golfweek that he\u2019s \u201cvery concerned\u201d<\/a> about McIlroy\u2019s opt-out of Memphis.<\/p>\n<p>Malnati also hinted at a potential rule change, which would require qualified players to compete in playoff events. McIlroy isn\u2019t the only player to skip such an event over the year; Tiger Woods did just that for the inaugural playoff event in 2007.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think there is stuff in the works, and I\u2019ll leave it at that,\u201d Malnati told Golfweek.<\/p>\n<p>Added Jordan Spieth, a former player director, in the same report: \u201cYou might have 1-2 guys do that for an event, but I don\u2019t think it will become a thing because they are still huge events against the best players in the world. I think they\u2019re trying to figure out how to make sure you don\u2019t skip both of them and ideally neither of them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The winners of the FedEx St. Jude and BMW receive 2,000 points apiece, compared to 750 for majors, 700 for signature events, 500 for regular full-field events and 300 for additional events. If No. 70 Matti Schmid were to win Sunday in Memphis, he could move all the way to third in points.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rory McIlroy is the only absence from this week\u2019s 70-man FedEx St. Jude Championship, the PGA Tour\u2019s playoff&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46389,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":["post-46388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}