Scheffler’s dominance, ‘silly’ Playoffs format

Check in every week for the unfiltered opinions of our writers and editors as they break down the hottest topics in the sport, and join the conversation by tweeting us at @golf_com. This week, we discuss the Tour Championship format, Scottie Scheffler’s dominance and the U.S. Presidents Cup team picks.

1. A couple of weeks after calling the format of the FedEx Cup Playoffs “silly,” World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler took advantage of his head start and cruised at East Lake, finishing 30 under to win by four over Collin Morikawa. It was the third straight year he entered the Tour Championship leading the FedEx Cup standings, but his first win. Did Scheffler’s runaway victory prove the format is anticlimactic and in need of a fix, or did it properly reward him for beginning the tournament with a head start since he was the best player all year?

Josh Berhow, managing editor (@Josh_Berhow): I think Scheffler winning this 33.3 percent of the time he’s entered the Tour Championship as the FedEx Cup leader proves it’s random enough to work and the math kind of checks out — but that still doesn’t mean it’s a good system. The format remains wonky and unnecessarily complicated. I know the drawback of incorporating match play into it all means some big names could miss out on the weekend and hurt ratings, but would it really be worse than an end-of-the-year event taking place with staggered starts? Final point: Match play is great theater, and golf fans already get too little of it at the pro level.

Jack Hirsh, assistant editor (@JR_HIRSHey): I wrote about the format last year a couple of times and I think we need to look at the champions and ask ourselves, are the right people winning this thing? The answer is 100% yes. There has yet to be an undeserving champion who made the Tour Championship their only win of the year, despite it almost happening a couple of times. Each of the six winners in this format has been a multi-time winner on the season. Last year, Rory McIlroy compared it to how the 73-9 Golden State Warriors team didn’t win the NBA finals. A playoff is a playoff and Josh is right that Scheffler only winning it one of three times holding the two-shot lead makes it random enough to be interesting. But I disagree wholeheartedly that it’s difficult to follow. It’s way better than tracking points down to the fractions in real-time. No one likes math. Match play would be great, but to have a “season-long race” decided by a format not really used all that often in professional golf seems a little wrong.

Josh Sens, senior writer (@joshsens): The current format is much more about appeasing players than it is about pleasing fans. Professional golf already caters plenty to its stars. I am with Berhow. Switch to match play. The staggered start is ridiculous. If match play brings about some perceived ‘unfairness’ or randomness, so be it. The priority should be to provide good entertainment. Not simply to further line the pockets of already very well-compensated players. 

2. Scheffler became the first person on Tour to win seven or more times in a season since Tiger Woods did so in 2007 (not counting Scheffler’s gold medal). Woods hit at least seven wins a season several times, but can Scheffler? A decade from now, will something like a seven-win season for him seem more like the norm, or an outlier?

Berhow: Saying someone is going to win seven times a season is crazy… but for Scheffler, I don’t think it will be an outlier. That doesn’t mean I think he’s going to do it six or seven more times, but once or twice? I think he can.

Sens: So many factors make these kinds of forecasts tough.  Will he stay healthy? Will the putting demons return? But I doubt this will be the last time we’ll see this kind of season from Scheffler. The more important tally, though, will be the majors. 

Hirsh: We’re going to see a lot of comparisons between Tiger and Scheffler over the next few years (see below question as well), but I’ve yet to see anything that suggests that Schefler can match the sustained level of dominance Tiger did. I’d say maybe once more, but if he does it again next season, I’ll be singing a different tune.

3. Speaking of Tiger, when Scheffler is at his best, is his skillset the closest thing to Woods we’ve seen over the last two decades?

Berhow: Tiger’s 2006 season remains the best SG: tee to green (+2.98) since it was tracked beginning in 2004, but second and third on that list are Scheffler’s last two seasons. Tiger in his prime was so complete it’s hard to say anyone matched that skillset, and even though we’ve tried to make the comparisons before this might be the most accurate yet, especially when Scottie is putting well. Not sure if Scheffler can ever match his ball-striking or clutch play under pressure, but a good start to earn more Tiger comparisons needs to be winning more majors.

Sens: We’ve seen some other dominant stretches that drew comparisons to Tiger– peak Rahm, peak Rory and peak DJ among them. But nothing as prolific or sustained as what we saw from Scheffler this year, who won in so many settings it was hard to keep track, and who tacked on a gold medal to it all. Peak Tiger remains a different animal. But for all-around game, Scheffler definitely takes the prize. What was amazing was how he put himself in the mix so consistently, even when his putter was cold or when he was sent to the cooler for a traffic violation.

Hirsh: I think Sens hits the nail on the head here, not only was peak Tiger a different animal, but he was a different animal for longer. All Scheffler was missing last year was the wins, now he’s winning at a similar rate, but let’s see how long he can do that for. We have to remember Tiger did most of his damage between 1996 and 2013. Basically he amassed 79 wins in about 17 seasons, which means he was winning more than four and a half times per year. Scheffler has won four-and-a-third times a year for the last three seasons. If he keeps that up for 10 more years, then we’re on to something.

4. Did Scheffler’s FedEx Cup title also solidify the player-of-the-year title? Or does Xander Schauffele and his two major championships still have a chance?

Berhow: Justin Thomas recently said he’d actually rather have Xander’s season (two majors to one), which I think a lot of pros would agree with. But that said, Scottie is the easy winner now.

Sens: Case closed. The honor goes to Scheffler. I suspect Schauffele would say the same.

Hirsh: No player in the last 34 years has won two majors and not won Player of the Year … until this year. Sorry, Xander.

5. Last week we learned the six auto qualifiers for the U.S. and International Presidents Cup teams, but both rosters will be finalized with six captain’s picks on Tuesday. Who are your six picks to round out the American squad?

Berhow: Sam Burns and Tony Finau were already in, and Russell Henley definitely should be now following his Sunday 62 and T4 finish at East Lake. I’m also taking Keegan Bradley — we can’t snub this guy two years in a row! — to round out the four easy picks. After that? Max Homa finished 12th in the standings and has proven to be a dynamite match-play competitor. He’s in. I think Brian Harman (11th in the standings) missing the Tour Championship will hurt his case, so I’d scroll down the list and scoop up Justin Thomas for my final pick. He finished 19th in the standings and was 14th at the Tour Championship, but he’s the kind of player I want for events like this.

Sens: Those are solid picks, but based on recent form I might swap out Homa for Horschel. And I wouldn’t mind subbing in Denny McCarthy for his dead-eye putting. 

Hirsh: You absolutely cannot leave Homa off Cup teams. He wasn’t 2023-J.T.-level bad this past year. I’d go Burns, Finau, Bradley, Homa, Akshay Bhatia and … regretfully … J.T. I think the only name I really need to make a case for is Bhatia, but he really showed this year that he’s going to be on the big stage for years to come. Thus, it’s best to get him some Presidents Cup experience before he heads of to the Ryder Cup, you know the one that really matters. As for Thomas, he contended enough this past year to get the nod given his match play record, but that absolutely does not validate his Ryder Cup selection last year. But he’s in a way better place than he was a year ago. How weird is it that Jordan Spieth is going to miss this team again?