Rory McIlroy Welcomes 'Clean Slate' In Revamped Tour Championship For FedEx Cup Glory

Rory McIlroy has welcomed the revamped format for this year's Tour Championship, saying it offers a "clean slate for everyone" to compete for the FedExCup.

The controversial staggered start, where players began with stroke advantages based on their FedExCup points standings, has been dropped for the 2025 edition.

Now, all 30 players will begin the tournament on level par at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, competing for the season-long title and a generous $10m (£7.4m) winner's prize.

World number one Scottie Scheffler, the current FedExCup points leader, will no longer have the previous system's advantage of starting with strokes over the rest of the field.

Since 2019, the leader began with a two-shot lead over second place and up to a 10-stroke lead over others, but this year's change means Scheffler and everyone else start equally.

The winner of the Tour Championship will also be crowned FedExCup champion, regardless of the points before the event.

Reflecting on the new setup, McIlroy said: "We've played this event and this golf course in a bunch of different formats. It has a different feel.

"Any one of the 30 has a chance to win the FedExCup this year, which is obviously a lot different than it's been in previous years.

"It's a clean slate for everyone, and it's a great opportunity for one of the guys who maybe wasn't a huge part of the season to put their hand up and have a chance to win the big prize at the end of the year."

As a three-time FedExCup champion (2016, 2019, and 2022), McIlroy said he was among the minority who didn’t dislike the old system, adding: "I'm maybe part of the minority.

"I didn't hate the starting strokes. I thought that the player that played the best during the course of the season should have had an advantage coming in here.

"But the majority of people just didn't like the starting strokes."

McIlroy, who served on the Player Advisory Council during discussions about the format, explained: "It was just a way to try to simplify the advantage that the top players were going to get over the course of the week instead of [Golf Channel's] Steve Sands doing calculations on a white board.

"But you could also argue if it was starting strokes this week, Scottie with a two-shot lead, it probably isn't enough considering what he's done this year and the lead that he has in the FedExCup going into this week."