Rory McIlroy Nears Tour Championship, Trails Only Scottie Scheffler In FedEx Cup Standings

Rory McIlroy says he will "continue to take advantage" of being able to pick his own tournament schedule after missing signature events in 2025.

McIlroy is currently only behind world number one Scottie Scheffler in the FedEx Cup standings ahead of the final PGA Tour event, the Tour Championship, this week at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta.

For the first time since 2019, the competition will not see the season-long leaders benefit from starting strokes.

This season, McIlroy has opted out of three signature events, the Memorial Tournament, The Sentry and the RBC Heritage, while he also missed the first event of the play-offs, the FedEx St Jude Championship.

The Northern Irishman will still maintain DP World Tour commitments following the conclusion of the PGA Tour season and will play in India and Australia, and the Irish Open before the end of the year.

And McIlroy, who completed his career grand slam at the Masters in April, says he will approach next year's schedule in the same manner as this year.

"I'll always look at the schedule at the start of the year and see what best fits me and my life, and everything else that I do with family or other opportunities that I'm pursuing outside of golf," he said.

"This year, that meant skipping a few signature events. [Next year] I might skip less, I might skip the same amount.

"The luxury of being a PGA Tour player is we're free to pick and choose our own schedule for the most part. I took advantage of that this year, and I'll continue to take advantage of that for as long as I can."

Next year, there will be the addition of a ninth signature event to the PGA Tour, with the Miami Championship to be played at Trump National Doral between April 30 and May 3.

As such, the 2026 PGA Tour schedule will see two majors – the Masters and the U.S. Open – as well as three signature events played in the space of seven weeks in April and May.

"I think it's all positive," McIlroy added on the schedule tweaks.

"Golf builds through the January, February, March months, gets a huge popularity spike through [the Masters at] Augusta, and to try and keep that momentum going through the next few weeks, through the [US] PGA, through the U.S. Open, I think is a good thing.

"It's quite a workload for the players to play that much golf in that stretch, but it's not as if we're having to travel halfway around the world to do it."