England’s Tommy Fleetwood won the Tour Championship on Sunday, winning the FedExCup and the $10 million prize money. Fleetwood finished with an overall 2-under 68 for a three-shot victory over Patrick Cantlay and Russell Henley.
However, the victory, apart from Fleetwood’s brilliance, was also down to a format change for this year’s Tour Championship. Under the starting strokes format previously followed in the Tour Championship, the winner of the event would have been Scottie Scheffler with a -24, with Fleetwood following close behind at -23.
The American golfer finished T4 alongside Corey Conners under the new format, but his pre-tournament ranking would have helped him win the tournament. Henley would have finished third while Cantlay would have finished T4 with Cameron Young instead.
If the Tour Championship had kept its Starting Strokes format from the past years, the leaderboard would've shaken out a bit differently. 👀 pic.twitter.com/zC9Qa5WHWp
— Golf Digest (@GolfDigest) August 25, 2025
Multiple other minor changes can be seen in the old format rankings posted by Golf Diaries on X. However, the biggest would have been Scheffler winning the Tour Championship for the second year running.
From 2019 to 2024, starting strokes were determined by the FedEx Cup ranking of each golfer before the tournament. However, under the new format, the player who shot the lowest score over 72 holes was announced as the winner.
The previous format had led to constant confusion with Scheffler himself describing the system as “silly” after winning over Collin Morikawa last year. Under the new format, all 30 players who qualify for the event have an equal chance of ending up as the winner.
That resulted in Fleetwood rightfully being named as the winner when he would have had a heartbreakingly close call under the old format. Under the old rule, Scheffler, who finished T4 on 14-under, would have been 24-under with starting strokes of 10-under. That would have given him a slight advantage over Fleetwood, who would have finished 23-under.
