Adam Scott speaks Tour Championship and its future
Adam Scott – file image courtesy of the Masters Tournament.
Two Australians and one New Zealander have made it to the elite 30-man field for the US$40 million Tour Championship at The East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, Adam Scott a former winner, while Ryan Fox and Min Woo Lee have made it to the FedEx Cup season-ending championship for the first occasion.
The winner this week will head to the off-season with another US$10 million in his pocket while the runner-up earns US$5 million and even the last man in the 30-player field is guaranteed US$355,000.
Adam Scott gets to play the event after finishing 28th in the FedEx Cup standings at the completion of last week’s BMW Championship and will make his appearance in the lucrative event where he has been a winner in 2006 but also regularly finishing inside the top ten.
This week, just making it to Atlanta provides a less complicated season in 2027.
Scott spoke to the media on Tuesday and answered questions on this event but also on the future of the Tour Championship, which takes a dramatic turn in its format in the 2028 season.
Yeah, it’s really nice to be back,” said the 46-year-old. “It’s a goal at the start of the year to make it this far for everyone, and just kind of living on the edge a little bit last week and scraped through. Now with the reset, I feel like I’m coming in No. 1 on the FedExCup. It’s a great opportunity for me. All these kind of, I guess, little achievements throughout the season and the rewards are meaningful at this point.
“Certainly looking forward to next year beyond this event. Being in the Signature Events and the majors is a real bonus because this year coming out it was certainly a bit of a burden on me trying to make sure I positioned myself for all the big events. But the schedule wasn’t on my terms.”
Scott was quick to point out that despite being well down the list in terms of eligible players this week, it is more than a case of just making up the numbers.
“I think you kind of summed up my career in your question. I would say consistent. The lows haven’t been terribly low over 25 years. I haven’t really fallen off the map completely. I’ve had my downs, of course. They feel a lot worse than probably what they really are. And I’ve had some highs as well.
“I’ve taken a lot of pride in my game that I’ve managed to maintain myself at generally the top-50 level my entire career, and the TOUR Championship probably requires a little more than that.
“Like I said, I’m out here. I’m not really out here making up the numbers. I take a lot of pride in my game. I want to play well when I’m out here. Happy to be here this week and give myself at least the recognition of being in the top 30 on the TOUR.”
Earlier in the day, Tour Commissioner Brian Rolapp outlined the future for the PGA Tour Championship, and some of the revelations were a surprise.
“I want to touch on the future of the TOUR Championship and our season-ending structure on the PGA TOUR Championship Series,” said Radlapp.
“Starting in 2028, the top 90 players on the season-long points list advance to the PGA TOUR Championship Series finale, the last stroke-play event to finalize the points list and recognize a season-long winner, essentially identifying the best player in the world.
“In addition, players will be battling to secure one of the 32 spots in the TOUR Championship based on the final season-long standings.
“This sets the stage for a re-imagined TOUR Championship, a separate, stand-alone competition that will emerge as one of the most difficult tournaments to qualify for and win, testing the world’s best golfers differently, in a unique competitive format. It’s match play over two weeks, an opportunity to make this an extended moment that commands the attention of golf and sports fans.
“Week 1 of the TOUR Championship is the group stage, eight groups of four. The top two advance from each group, 16 players move on.
“Week 2 is four rounds of match play, all 16 players competing all four rounds. Every match impacts the final standings. The player who goes undefeated will be crowned the winner of the TOUR Championship.
“Each week of the TOUR Championship will be played at a different course. This new format creates an exciting opportunity to showcase some of the most renowned venues in our sport, including places the modern TOUR has never been before.
“Since our announcement in June, we have received a tremendous level of interest from prospective host venues. As a result, multiple discussions are under way, site visits have begun, and we are encouraged by the enthusiasm we are seeing for the future of the TOUR Championship.”
“Yeah, I think the match play was pushed pretty hard by a lot of people around the TOUR who had a say in this,” added Scott. “I would say I came around to the idea of match play. I definitely like the fact that we’re doing it over two weeks. It’s very different. I like the fact that the TOUR kind of dared to really step outside the box on this one and not do some sort of contrived variant of what we have or what we have had with a match play tournament previously.
“This is new and exciting, and I feel like it could be — from a playing standpoint, I hope it’s going to be a really fun end to what’s going to be a tough season of golf. I hope the players will find that it’s a fun finish and they can enjoy it.
“I think also, too, more from the commercial side of things, I think there’s a lot of flexibility with this format moving forward, and it can adapt and hopefully thrive to whatever conditions we face in the future.
“It’s completely different than anything we have in golf. We don’t have an event over two weeks. You can’t really compare golf to other sports. But we see longer competitions in other sports. Maybe the first one that comes to mind over two weeks is like a Grand Slam in tennis.
“I feel like there’s a real opportunity for people to kind of buy in over two weeks and grow as the tournament carries on. I’ll be interested to see if that happens or if that’s not the case.
“As we see with World Cup football or other events that are longer, there’s a chance for it to really develop and it’s not over so quickly. I think that’ll be interesting, and I think it could work well for the TOUR Championship, which should be an important event on our schedule.”
Both Lee and Fox have had excellent seasons just to be in Atlanta this week, both playing the East Lake Golf Club for the first occasion.
