Rory McIlroy has been loyal to him since last year and will not be in the FedEx Cup playoff opening next week.
Next week’s list of commitments for FedEx St. Jude Classic (based on last week’s FedEx Cup ranking), it’s the first of three playoff games ending the PGA Tour regular season, and McIlroy’s name is not there.
McIlroy’s decision to skip the first playoff game, which doesn’t mean much to his chances of winning at the FedEx Cup, as he promises what he’ll get in Memphis or next week’s BMW Championship, where he can win the Tour title at East Lake. McIlroy, who finished second earlier this season after three wins, including the Masters, led nearly 850 points in Sepp Straka.
Of the top 70 players who qualify for the playoffs, McIlroy hasn’t played in the T7 since last month’s open championship, and he is the only player to choose to skip the opener.
The current Grand Slam champion opened in TPC Southwind’s 68 last year, backed up only the rest of the week and completed the T68 (second place), but only ranked third in the FedEx Cup. In the second half of last year, he told British Telegram He intends to cut his schedule this season and he will “may not participate” this season.
“I probably won’t be playing in Memphis’ first playoff,” McIlroy told telegraph November. “I mean, I’m basically dead this year [tied for 68 in a 70-man field]and only fell one position in the playoffs. ”
In that interview, McIlroy also called out the legacy of Valero Texas Open and RBC, events he attended in 2024, and he may not not attend in 2025, with none of his schedule set for this season. Assuming McIlroy competes both in the BMW and Tour Championships, he will start 16 times on the tour this season, three fewer than a year ago, after he added Texas child Houston to his schedule for the first time since 2014.
McIlroy also performed poorly in his career at TPC Southwind.
His best result was in 2023, when he scored the final round of 65 to win third place, but he missed the cuts in the year before the first game of the playoffs. He never won Memphis in eight attempts.
McIlroy also had precedents for skipping the first FedEx Cup playoffs, although this was his first time finishing the game as the playoffs cut off from four games to three. He chose to withdraw from Northern Trust in 2018 and Barclays in 2015.
This is the first year of the new FedEx Cup bonus structure for the PGA Tour, which places more emphasis on regular season than allocating bonuses based on tour results. According to his second place in the FedEx Cup standings, McIlroy is based on a second-place regular season and earns $6 million from the Comcast Business top 10, which will make $4 million.
