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Rory McILroy had another scheduled schedule this season. But this week, he found a way to reduce his workload.
McILroy chose to jump the St. Jude championship to TPC Southwind in Memphis, to the disarray of at least one organizer of PGA Tour. Peter Malnati, director of players of the PGA Tour Policy Board, said that he was “very concerned” by McILroy’s decision.
The Fedex St. Jude championship serves as a first step in the playoffs. The BMW championship is the second floor of the playoff series, while the tour championship later this month in Atlanta will conclude the 2025 eliminatory series.
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Rory McILroy comes out of the first TEE in the first round of the US Open golf tournament. (Charles Leclaire-Imagn Images)
The choice of McILroy seemed to encourage those responsible for the PGA Tour to reflect on a change of rule that could be blocked mathematically in some players in the second and third legs in the playoffs.
2025 Fedex st. Jude Championship Field: complete list of golfers for the first stage of the playoffs
The McILroy and PGA Tour Scottie Scheffler qualifiers have accumulated so many points of events throughout the season and their advances will maintain them in the first 50 and top-30 that the next tournaments obliged. The Tour championship at East Lake in Atlanta brings together the 30 best players of the year for a shot in the Fedex Cup trophy.
Rory McILroy hits his start on the eighth hole in the second round of the RBC Canadian Open Golf Tournament. (Dan Hamilton / Imagn Images)
Malnati suggested that a change of rule may be on the horizon. “I think there are things in preparation, and I’ll leave it,” he told Golfweek.
Meanwhile, Jordan Spieth has rejected the idea that McILroy’s actions will be the start of a trend for other players. Spieth was previously the director of players in PGA Tour policy.
“You may have 1-2 guys to do this for an event, but I don’t think that will become one thing because they are always huge events against the best players in the world,” said Spieth. “I think they are trying to understand how to make sure you don’t jump both of them and ideally none of them.”
The absence of McILroy was not completely unexpected, since he had previously suggested that he was planning to jump the St. Jude championship of this year.
Rory McILroy moves away from No. 13 Green in the first round of the Masters tournament. (Images Katie Goodale / Imagn)
“There are a few tournaments I played this year that I do not usually play and that I might not play next year,” said McILroy at Telegraph in November 2024.
“I played the cognizant at Palm Beach Gardens, [the Valero Texas Open in] San Antonio and [the RBC Heritage at] Hilton Head. And I will probably not play the first eliminatory event in Memphis. I mean, I finished mainly dead last year this year and I went down in one place in the classification of the playoffs. “”
Despite the first stage of the playoff series, McILroy should participate in the penultimate event of the playoff series in Baltimore and the last stage of Atlanta later this month. The Northern Irishman should also be a principal participant in Europe during this year’s Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black in New York.
