PGA Tour’s $100M Playoffs Alter Bonus Payout for Tour Championship

The PGA Tour’s $100 million playoffs are getting a major makeover that will drastically alter bonus money for the season’s top 30 players.

The Tour Championship is eliminating its “starting strokes” format that awarded a competitive advantage based on FedEx Cup points earned entering the season finale, including the top qualifier beginning the tournament at 10 under, with subsequent players starting closer to even par.

That was key because since 2019, when starting strokes were introduced, the winner of the Tour Championship was also crowned the season-long FedEx Cup champion. Last year, that meant a $25 million bonus for Scottie Scheffler. Before 2019, the winner of the Tour Championship and the FedEx Cup champion were often different players.

In August at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, the Tour Championship will play out as a standard 72-hole stroke-play format, with no player receiving a starting advantage, but the tournament winner still being crowned the season-long FedEx Cup champion. 

However, eliminating starting strokes means the playoff finale will no longer be a high-stakes showdown for the $25 million first–place prize—and the many other multimillion-dollar paydays. The announcement was made Tuesday night after players approved the changes during a meeting at the Memorial Tournament in Ohio.

FedEx Cup bonus money distributions for the top 30 positions (worth nearly $83 million) through the Tour Championship will be balanced for the 2025 season “to account for the increased volatility, reward season-long performance and recognize the significance of the FedEx Cup,” the PGA Tour said.

Specific details of how that bonus money will be allocated were not revealed. But a PGA Tour spokesperson told Front Office Sports that bonus money for players finishing between 31st and 150th in the FedEx Cup this season (roughly $17 million) remains unchanged, and that the reallocated bonus distribution plan will be communicated in the coming weeks.