Matt Fitzpatrick Dares to Ask the Question: Are the Playoffs Really Necessary?

Finding the perfect playoff format for golf seems like an impossible task—just look at the PGA TOUR’s history of trying to figure it out. There’s yet to be a combination of points, format, and qualifications that’s made sense.

But this is what we do in the States! We need meaningful action and we need a winner! However, a TOUR star from across the pond isn’t convinced the playoffs are necessary.

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“I understand the playoffs in the U.S. are a very big thing in other sports, and it's obviously hard to do that with golf because of the format of golf,” Matt Fitzpatrick said Wednesday ahead of this week’s BMW Championship, the second of three FedExCup Playoffs events. “I think the player who has played the best all year from January to [the TOUR Championship] deserves to be the FedExCup champion, the guy who has made the most points, which, you know, is going to be Scottie Scheffler pretty much.”

The Englishman then mentioned that reducing the points at the first two playoff events was the right call, because a player could sneak into the postseason, have one good week inside the ropes, and end up in the TOUR Championship. He also pointed out, by using Collin Morikawa as an example, that a player could ball out all year, have a couple bad weeks in the postseason, and lose out on millions.

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“Other than, from someone who is English, do we really need playoffs in golf? Like, it's just not really a thing in the U.K., so, you know,” he said.

In a perfect world, I think this is what the “playoffs” would look like: crown the FedExCup champion at the end of the regular season—you’d get bigger names playing in the last few weeks of the year and it’d reward players who played well in all the big events—and then take the top 64 players and hold a match-play event at an incredible venue. No more East Lake, no more TPC Southwind. Instead, let’s go to Cypress Point, Pine Valley, Bandon Dunes—now that’s what I’m talking about.

When CEO Brian Rolapp unveiled the changes coming in 2028 back in June at the Travelers Championship, he said match play would be involved in the postseason and the TOUR Championship would head to elite courses the league doesn’t visit. So our ideas align, but I’m sure Rolapp will want to keep the other two playoff events.

We’ll see what it ends up looking like, but it’s hard to argue with Fitzpatrick on this one.