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PGA Tour

PGA Tour: Tour Championship changing to a group format?

A change to the season ending tournament on the PGA Tour is being discussed.

Schedule: The PGA Tour is considering a change to the tournament format for the Tour Championship. According to US media reports, a bracket solution is being discussed for the season finale at East Lake Country Club, i.e. dividing the field of participants into two groups, which will then play out the champion in stroke play and match play. The current format is controversial among active players, but a format with direct duels would be well received. ‘I’d like to see something the players are excited about and the fans are excited about,’ said Patrick Cantlay, a member of the PGA Tour Policy Board, which has to approve a change. As only the top 30 players of the season or the play-offs are competing in East Lake anyway, the problem that makes a match play format unattractive for standard tournaments would also be obsolete: because no underdogs could fight their way through to the semi-finals or final and then possibly rather unattractive names with low ratings would duel each other at prime time on Sunday.