Rory McIlroy’s Major Decision to Skip First Event of FedEx Cup Playoffs SPARKS Concern Among PGA Tour

Rory McIlroy decided to skip the 1st event of the FedEx Cup playoffs, the FedEx St. Jude Championship, and will not tee off this week in Memphis.

Rory McIlroy’s Major Decision to Skip First Event of FedEx Cup Playoffs SPARKS Concern Among PGA Tour

Rory McIlroy (Image via Imago)

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The 2025 PGA Tour season is heading into its playoff mode. This week, the FedEx St. Jude Championship will mark the start of the FedEx Cup playoffs with the top 70 players. The first event though will not feature Rory McIlroy, who decided to skip it. This action from him has sparked concern among the tour.

McIlroy ended the regular season finishing 2nd in the FedEx Cup standings just behind Scottie Scheffler. The Northern Irish golfer had a successful year this time and won 3 times, which included his long-awaited win at the Masters Tournament.

In April, McIlroy finally won the Masters and completed the career grand slam in the process. Following a dominating run from Scheffler, which saw him win the PGA Championship and the Open Championship, the World No.1 knocked off McIlroy from the top spot in the FedEx Cup standings.

The FedEx Cup playoffs are divided into three events. First, the top 70 players play in the FedEx St. Jude Championship. The top 50 after this event then compete in the BMW Championship. The top 30 then face off in the Tour Championship at East Lake in Atlanta to crown the FedEx Cup champion.

While the tour made some changes to the Tour Championship and removed the Starting Strokes format, they did not close this one big loophole. As a result of his high ranking, McIlroy can easily skip the first event without any effect. The 5-time major champion is the only one from the top-70 who will not compete in Memphis this week.

The decision of McIlroy has caused a stir in the golfing world. When asked by reporters regarding his concern levels about this action from the World No.2, Peter Malnati, one of the player-directors on the PGA Tour policy board, claimed he was “very concerned“. The PGA Tour could take some measures to prevent players from doing this in the future.

I think there is stuff in the works and I’ll leave it at that.

Peter Malnati on whether PGA Tour will take measures on preventing players from skipping playoff events

McIlroy’s last appearance came at the Open Championship in his home country of Northern Ireland. At Royal Portrush, he shot scores of 70-69-66-69 in the four rounds to finish T7 with a score of 10-under par.

Rory McIlroy claims LIV Golf served as a wake-up call for PGA Tour

A few days ago, Rory McIlroy once again made a bold remark regarding LIV Golf. The 36-year-old, who was once a huge critic of the Saudi-funded tour, expressed that they served as a wake-up call to the PGA Tour.

Rory McIlroy
Rory McIlroy (Image via Imago)

The world of golf was left divided in 2021 with the announcement of LIV Golf. Several top names from the PGA Tour would leave them and join the breakaway tour on huge money deals.

While talks of a merger and reunification of the game still go on, Rory McIlroy, on the ‘How Leaders Lead with David Novak‘ podcast, expressed that their establishment made the PGA Tour think about its future.

They’ve definitely been a disruptor in the game of golf. Sometimes things need a shakeup and if anything, I think it was a bit of a wake-up call for the PGA Tour to maybe focus a little bit more on the future.

Rory McIlroy said

McIlroy, who successfully launched the TGL this year with Tiger Woods, also expressed an idea. He suggested that LIV could send some of their teams to the TGL, and the TGL could then send some of their guys to participate in LIV event, thus keeping the team-based theme.

If there’s a way to expand team golf and try to make it this bigger entity… TGL can have some of the LIV guys come over and play with their teams. Then, maybe LIV, more on the back end of the year like post-summer, have some of the TGL teams start to play in some of the LIV-type tournaments. It’s a bridge.

Rory McIlroy said

Speaking on the merger, former Masters Champion Adam Scott recently opened up on the talks between the tour and the Public Investment Fund (PIF). The player-director expressed that there had been ‘no developments’ regarding the reunification of the game since the meetings at the White House earlier this year.

So for now, things are likely going to stay the way they are with PGA Tour players competing on PGA Tour events and LIV players on the LIV Golf circuit.

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