Rory McIlroy says he is comfortable with the format change at this year’s Tour Championship, which gives each one of the 30-strong field a unique chance to lift the FedEx Cup.<\/p>\n
Masters champion McIlroy is second in the FedEx rankings behind defending champion Scottie Scheffler, but will not start with a two-shot deficit as the unpopular starting-strokes format has been scrapped this year.<\/p>\n
Every player will start equal at East Lake in Atlanta on Thursday, meaning the Tour Championship winner will also be crowned FedEx champion and will pocket the $10m on offer.<\/p>\n
McIlroy said: “Any time you make it back to East Lake you\u2019ve had a good year and it\u2019s always nice to come back.<\/p>\n
“We\u2019ve played this event and this golf course in a bunch of different formats.<\/p>\n
“It has a different feel, any one of the 30 has a chance to win the FedEx Cup this year, which is obviously a lot different than it\u2019s been in previous years.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s a clean slate for everyone and it\u2019s a great opportunity for one of the guys who maybe wasn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s also an opportunity for some of the guys who have had great years to rubberstamp the season a little bit and end of a positive note. There\u2019s still a lot to play for this week.”<\/p>\n
Tommy Fleetwood, up to fifth in the FedEx Cup rankings after back-to-back tied-third and tied-fourth finishes, said he was excited that this year\u2019s new format gives everyone an equal chance.<\/p>\n
He said: “I\u2019m sure everybody aside from Scottie Scheffler will love the fact we\u2019re all starting on a level playing field. You win this week and you\u2019re holding two trophies.”<\/p>\n
Fleetwood, who has had seven top-10 finishes this season, is still chasing his first PGA Tour win after coming close at the FedEx St Jude Championship before his tied-fourth finish on Sunday at the BMW Championship.<\/p>\n
He added: “I\u2019ll finish it off at some point. I\u2019ll get it right and I\u2019ll get it right more than once.<\/p>\n
“Best-case scenario, coming down the stretch at East Lake with a chance to win. Whether I get it right or not, whether someone plays better or not, I\u2019ll talk about that after.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rory McIlroy says he is comfortable with the format change at this year’s Tour Championship, which gives each…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358548,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4106],"tags":[2826,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-358547","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-golf","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115059253022990158","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358547\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}