With a change to the format coming this year at the Tour Championship, the PGA Tour is altering the disbursement of $100 million in bonus money that is paid out to players who make it to the final event of the FedEx Cup playoffs.
Because the tournament will no longer have a starting strokes format and will have all 30 players competing for a single tournament title, the winner will now receive $10 million in bonus money, with $5 million going to second place and $355,000 going to last place. There will be a total purse of $40 million.
The $25 million bonus to the winner is no longer being paid but the money is being spread to the points leaders through the BMW Championship, the second playoff event that determines who goes to Atlanta.
The leader in points will earn $5 million there—in addition to the purse that will be $20 million just as the FedEx St. Jude Championship and the eight signature events. Bonus money at the BMW goes down to $195,000 for the 30th and last qualifier for the Tour Championship.
Still in place is the Comcast Business Tour Top 10 which pays $40 million in bonus money to the top 10 in the final FedEx Cup standings through the Wyndham Championship, the final regular season tournament.
The leader at that point gets $10 million.
So a player who leads in FedEx Cup points after the Wyndham and following the BMW Championship and also wins the Tour Championship would receive $25 million in bonus money. None of that counts the purses at those events, aside from the Tour Championship, which will be all bonus money.
In late May the Tour announced a change to the Tour Championship, scrapping the “starting strokes” format that has been in place since 2019. Last year, Scheffler was given a two-shot advantage over the field because he had led in points through the BMW. He started at -10 with the rest of the field having various starting points down to even par.
The system was mostly criticized, changed after the 2018 Tour Championship to assure a single winner.
Now the winner of the Tour Championship, a 72-hole event in which everyone starts the same, will decide the FedEx Cup champion.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as PGA Tour Changes Payouts From FedEx Cup Playoffs Bonus Pool.
