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A year ago at East Lake Golf Club, Justin Rose claimed the 2018 FedEx Cup title while Tiger Woods won the season-ending Tour Championship.

By Greg Gottfried
Since their inception in 2007, the FedEx Cup Playoffs have been evolving. During the first few years, PGA Tour brass tinkered with how many points golfers received for regular-season events versus playoff events. For 2009, they made sure players couldn’t clinch the FedEx Cup before the end of the Tour Championship (as Vijay Singh had done in 2008). In 2015, points reset when golfers got to the Tour Championship, ensuring that every player in the final field had a mathematical chance to win the FedEx Cup. However, as the 13th edition of the Playoffs begin in 2019, the changes set to play out over the next three weeks—beginning with the Northern Trust at Liberty National Golf Club in Jersey City, N.J., followed by the BMW Championship at Medinah Country Club outside of Chicago and the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta—are more than subtle tweaks but rather a dramatic overhaul to the end-of-the-season event. To break it all down, here are some answers to questions you might have that will help you understand what’s in store as the tour decides its next FedEx Cup champion.

When are the FedEx Cup Playoffs played?
The three tournaments will span from Aug. 8-25. It will all begin on Thursday in New Jersey with the Northern Trust.

Wait, three tournaments. Haven’t there always been four tournaments? What’s going on?
Yes, you’re right. One of the big changes for 2019 is that the Playoffs have been decreased from four to three events, which will help allow the season to come to a close the week before Labor Day.

How many golfers will play in each of the three events?
The top 125 players off the FedEx Cup points list are in the field at this week’s Northern Trust. That number decreases to 70 for the BMW Championship. The top 30 will then advance from Medinah to Atlanta for the Tour Championship, the traditional conclusion of the season.

Is that it for the changes? I could have sworn I read something about the scoring system getting overhauled.
It did, actually. (Good memory!) Specifically, for the Tour Championship. Instead of all 30 players starting with the same score, this year players will be staggered by strokes based on where they stand in the FedEx Cup points list. The No. 1 ranked player will start the final tournament at 10 under par, with the No. 2 player at eight under, and then seven under, six under and five under for Nos. 3-5. Nos. 6-10 will be at four under; Nos. 11-15 start at three under; Nos. 16-20 start at two under; Nos. 21-25 start at one under; and Nos. 26-30 start at even par. The individual with the best score after the stroke adjustment, not merely the best 72-hole score, will be the winner of the Tour Championship and the FedEx Cup.

So there won’t be separate winners of the Tour Championship and the FedEx Cup anymore?
Nope … that’s why the change was made, to help eliminate the confusion of somebody winning the tournament at East Lake but not being the actual FedEx Cup champion. In fact, there is no longer a separate purse for the Tour Championship.

Stan Badz

Were there two winners a lot?
In the first 12 years of the Playoffs, it happened four times, including the past two seasons. Remember Tiger Woods’ win at last year’s Tour Championship? Well, it was Justin Rose, however, who took home the FedEx Cup. Similarly, Xander Schauffele became the first rookie to win the Tour Championship in 2017, but Justin Thomas took the FedEx Cup title. Given how frequently this was happening, tour officials decided they needed an alternative to simplify the race for the FedEx Cup title.

Will winning the Tour Championship count for a player’s victory total?
Yes. It still counts for the PGA Tour’s records.

How is the World Ranking handling these changes to the Tour Championship?
OK, so much for avoiding confusion. The World Ranking will actually keep the same approach as in years past. The Official World Golf Ranking board approved a proposal in April from the PGA Tour that bypasses the staggered start and instead looks at where the players would have finished without the new rules for the FedEx Cup. So the winner of the Tour Championship according to the World Rankings might not be the person crowned the FedEx Cup champion but rather the player who shoots the lowest score over 72 holes at East Lake.

Who are the players in the lead for this year’s event?
Entering the playoffs, Brooks Koepka is the FedEx Cup points leader with 2,887 points. He holds a 572-point edge on second-place Rory McIlroy (2,315 points). Matt Kuchar (2,313), Xander Schauffele (1,858) and Gary Woodland (1,795) complete the top five.

Ben Jared

Do points from the regular season carry over into the playoffs?
Yes. Any points earned in the first two FedEx Cup playoff events are simply added to a player’s regular-season points to get their new place on the FedEx Cup points list each week.

How are the points earned different in the playoffs compared to the regular season?
As you might imagine, a premium is given to players who win/play well playoff events. If you won a regular-season PGA Tour stop, you earned 500 points. For a playoff win, you get 2,000 points. Similarly, all players earn four times the points for their performances in playoff events compared to regular-season tournaments.

Who is the defending FedEx Cup champion?
Justin Rose won in 2018, jumping up from the fourth spot at the start of the Playoffs. Heading into this year’s event, Rose is No. 11 in the standings.

Who has won the most FedEx Cups?
Tiger Woods—you’ve probably heard of him—has won the Playoffs twice, in 2007 and 2009. He is the only golfer to win the FedEx Cup more than once.

Other past champions include:
2008: Vijay Singh
2010: Jim Furyk
2011: Bill Haas
2012: Brandt Snedeker
2013: Henrik Stenson
2014: Billy Horschel
2015: Jordan Spieth
2016: Rory McIlroy
2017: Justin Thomas
2018: Justin Rose

Will Tiger Woods be in this year’s FedEx Cup Playoffs?
Yes. Woods has played only 10 events in 2019, but with his Masters win, he has qualified for the playoffs (he’s 28th on the points list) and announced last week that he would play at the Northern Trust and the BMW Championship. Although Woods hasn’t competed in a tournament since missing the cut at the Open Championship, he has been preparing for the tour’s postseason. “I’m going to take a couple of weeks off and get ready for the playoffs,” Woods said in July. “We’ve got the playoffs coming up, and anything can happen. Last year, I almost stole the whole FedEx Cup at the very end. … So get ready for those events. And after that, then have a break.”

How much FedEx Cup prize money will be handed out?
Ahh … that’s another big change this year. Previously, the FedEx Cup champion earned a $10 million bonus, but starting in 2019 the winner will bank $15 million. Each subsequent place also has gotten a bump, with the overall FedEx Cup prize money equaling $60 million.

Here’s the breakdown for all the players at the Tour Championship:

1: $15,000,000
2: $5,000,000
3: $4,000,000
4: $3,000,000
5: $2,500,000
6: $1,900,000
7: $1,300,000
8: $1,100,000
9: $950,000
10: $830,000
11: $750,000
12: $705,000
13: $660,000
14: $620,000
15: $595,000
16: $570,000
17: $550,000
18: $535,000
19: $520,000
20: $505,000
21: $490,000
22: $478,000
23: $466,000
24: $456,000
25: $445,000
26: $435,000
27: $425,000
28: $415,000
29: $405,000
30: $395,000