{"id":64059,"date":"2025-08-07T02:36:17","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T02:36:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/64059\/"},"modified":"2025-08-07T02:36:17","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T02:36:17","slug":"the-pga-tour-doesnt-need-a-rory-mcilroy-rule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/64059\/","title":{"rendered":"The PGA Tour Doesn’t Need a Rory McIlroy Rule"},"content":{"rendered":"

The FedEx Cup does not have a Rory McIlroy problem and does not need a Rory McIlroy rule. In case you have not heard, Rory is the only player of the eligible 70 to not enter this week\u2019s first leg of the playoffs, the FedEx St. Jude WGC Barclays Northern Trust Classic Championship. In any other walk of life, someone using their free will to pass on a mid-August trip to Memphis for outdoor activities would not raise an eyebrow. It would be considered sensible and obvious. <\/p>\n

But Rory is the PGA Tour\u2019s most popular player, and this is the start of the Tour\u2019s playoffs, and the hometown courier service not only sponsors the event but the whole damn system. Rory is probably grateful for that patronage. No one has made more in the playoffs \u2013 $69,515,615 \u2013 to be exact. But those winnings are not all owing to one sponsor, and he had a hand in achieving those earnings. Just as he has a hand in deciding where and when he\u2019ll play.<\/p>\n

So he\u2019s not there, and because he\u2019s absent, we have discourse on loopholes that need closing and more playoff problems. Peter Malnati, who is also not in Memphis because he did not qualify, said he was \u201cvery concerned\u201d about this development. This quote comes via an article by the excellent reporter Adam Schupak<\/a>, who added in his article, with Malnati\u2019s insights, that there are ongoing discussions to address this form of truancy. Schupak calls on new CEO Brian Rolapp<\/a> to close this loophole with what could be called the McIlroy Rule, as his absence this week \u201cdamages the credibility of the FedEx Cup.\u201d<\/p>\n

I would gesture broadly at the last 19 years of the FedEx Cup damaging the credibility of the FedEx Cup more so than McIlroy\u2019s one-week bypass. It\u2019s been a constant state of change, from points predicaments to changing the total number of events to schedule swaps to a low-net tournament. We\u2019re told next year will likely bring another overhaul with a new Tour Championship format. It\u2019s not Rory\u2019s fault the Tour, in its evolution where title sponsorship seemed most sacred, decided to abandon markets like New York and Boston in late September to drop anchor in the Sweat Seas of Memphis and Atlanta in August. <\/p>\n

The playoffs can be tweaked and improved at the margins, but they are what they are. Rory skipping Memphis is not some great line that has been crossed to undermine the over-promoted cup. It was at the BMW Championship four years ago, where he is supposed to return next week, that Rory reiterated that \u201cit\u2019s hard to feel fresh at this time in the season,\u201d so it was nice the playoffs could be distinguished as \u201cmore of an entertainment product rather than the majors.\u201d I don\u2019t mean to sound beaten down and defeated but \u2026 the Players is the Tour\u2019s best event and has been admirably elevated in recent years, while the playoffs are an end-of-season money bath that give some animating purpose to the other events of the season but will never be anything close to the premiere events in golf, regardless of Rules, Corollaries, or Schedule changes. <\/p>\n

Creating a Rory Rule is not changing shit, and this is before we open up the can of worms about forcing independent contractors to play certain dates. We\u2019ve done five years of revolving door arguments and changes about that already. Besides, Rory might just be a true outlier based on his season, stature, and current place on the career timeline. He\u2019s the only one who took a pass. If we\u2019ve learned anything about the past five years, the pros like their money, and this week offers a large sum, guaranteed, and with no cut. That\u2019s what the playoffs will continue to be, regardless of whether one\u2019s presence is mandated or not.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The FedEx Cup does not have a Rory McIlroy problem and does not need a Rory McIlroy rule.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64060,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":["post-64059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}