PGAT to change the TOUR Championship format for the 2025 season - REPORT

The format for the PGA Tour Championship has been criticized lately, and it could change as soon as this season. Thanks to Scottie Scheffler's impressive season, he started round one at -10. Others were staggered with slightly worse starting points, but the ones at the top started off with a significant advantage.

Scheffler ended up shooting -30 (-20 not counting his starting point) and won by four strokes. He defeated Collin Morikawa, but the latter had started at four-under. Scheffler was up by six to start, so Morikawa actually played slightly better, but the world number one won anyway.

That system could reportedly be replaced with a bracket-style system. Per The Athletic, the Tour is mulling making it a bracket with head-to-head matches. Instead of starting out with strokes lost, the top players would have byes.

In this scenario, Scheffler and Schauffele would have had fewer matches to play than Tony Finau, Russell Henley, and Viktor Hovland rather than a huge advantage on the leaderboard.

This still gives those top players an advantage, but would ensure that all competing players have a chance to win the season-ending event. If the changes are enacted for 2025, the 30-man field would remain. In the future, though, that number could change.

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PGA Tour to reportedly add bracket-style play to Tour Championship after changing WGC Match Play

Through 2023, the PGA Tour had a bracket-style, seeded tournament like what it is reportedly angling to do with the Tour Championship. The WGC Match Play Championship was the only tournament to function like that, but it was unique.

This event didn't have byes, so it often led to top players getting eliminated early. The inclusion of bye rounds for top golfers in the Championship would alleviate that.

The Tour Championship could be changing (Image via Imagn)

When the Tour did remove WGC Match Play from the schedule, it left the possibility for a similar style of play to return in another event down the line. Now, it looks like the final event of the FedEx Cup could be adopting that style.

The reimagining of this event comes directly after the Tour implemented some changes to its format overall. Field sizes and the overall amount of memberships available have both shrunk, so the FedEx Cup will be altered before the Championship at the end of the year, which is also about to be altered.