PGA Tour stars hint at rule change after Rory McIlroy’s FedEx Cup snub

By , News editor and writer. Probably entertainer third.

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Rory McIlroy has decided to skip the PGA Tour's first FedEx Cup Playoffs event at TPC Southwind.

It’s caused controversy among the players at the first of the Playoffs event…

If you’re tuning in to this week’s FedEx St Jude Championship this week expecting to see all 70 players who qualified for the opening event of the PGA Tour’s season-ending playoffs, you’re going to be disappointed.

Rory McIlroy has opted to skip the TPC Southwind showcase and will return to action at next week’s BMW Championship.

McIlroy, who hasn’t teed up competitively since finishing in a tie for 7th at The Open, will finish the PGA Tour season before heading back to the UK for the Amgen Irish Open and BMW PGA Championship.

After the Ryder Cup, McIlroy will then see out the remainder of his 2025 schedule in India, the Middle East for the DP World Tour’s Final Series, and Australia.

If he so wished, the Masters could also sit out of the second FedEx Cup Playoffs event at Caves Valley thanks to a loophole in the rules that means he is already qualified for the Tour Championship at East Lake.

It’s not the first time this has happened – Tiger Woods, on two occasions, and Jim Furyk have also skipped the first playoff and gone on to win the FedEx Cup – but it’s a loophole Peter Malnati is hoping to close.

The two-time PGA Tour champion, who sits as a player director on the Tour’s policy board, told reporters he is “very concerned” by McIlroy’s absence in Tennessee.

Malnati also said “there is stuff in the works” to keep it from happening again, but refused to go into any more detail. “I’ll leave it at that,” he added.

Jordan Spieth, a former PGA Tour policy board player director, isn’t as worried by it.

“You might have one, two guys do that for an event,” he told reporters. “But I don’t think it will become a thing because they are still huge events against the best players in the world.”

The three-time major winner added: “I think they’re trying to figure out how to make sure you don’t skip both of them and ideally neither of them.”

Meanwhile, on social media, another PGA Tour pro was taking a bizarre shot at McIlroy’s decision.

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