Jay Monahan has had his share of experimentation with the Tour Championship. For six years, the regular season-ending event had the season’s best player start the event with a 10-stroke advantage. That produced some expected results like Scottie Scheffler, Dustin Johnson, and Patrick Cantlay winning the tournament and bagging the prize purse from the FedEx Cup that came along with it. Despite winning big, Scheffler and Cantlay weren’t pleased with the format.

Cantlay, who won the tournament in 2021, said that he was “not a fan” of the format that gives him an unreasonable advantage over his peers. Scheffler had also stated his concerns, as he had proposed a straightforward event without any stroke advantage. Only a few hours ago, the PGA Tour answered their prayers as they modified the format and removed the stroke advantage from this season onwards. Monahan and his team also confirmed that the courses of the Tour Championship will be far more challenging to compete on. Now, a Golf Channel reporter has also spilled his take on the growing discussion.

Todd Lewis joined the latest episode of 5 Clubs with Gary Williams on YouTube. In one of the segments, he said, “You know how good these guys are. They are unbelievably talented. The Tour hinted in their release yesterday about this new format for the Tour Championship. Also saying that, they are going to increase the intensity of the setup. They feel like the fans want to try to have the winning score that is close to even par.” The PGA Tour suggested that they would make the course for the Tour Championship so challenging that most golfers on the field would go over par, and the winner would be closer to making par than going too many strokes under.

Considering how good the PGA Tour pros are, the Golf Channel reporter added, “If you get a winner that is even par with this talented a group of PGA Tour players, it is going to be really, really hard because they are that good. So I’m interested to see what this setup is going to be like. Now, Mother Nature will have some say in this as well. But I’m going to see what East Lake is going to look like at the Tour Championship.”

To have the likes of Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, and others only be able to make par to win the Tour Championship might be difficult. But ANGC has been able to do that on multiple occasions. So Jay Monahan & Co. undoubtedly have a few options at their disposal to make the exclusive season-ending event that challenging. The most challenging course in the United States, according to Covers, is at the Paako Ridge Golf Club in New Mexico. That might be one of the options they can choose from. East Lake Golf Course might also be in the rotation lineup after the PGA Tour modifies it to make it more challenging.

Either way, Lewis was not the only one. The controversial change in format and rule to decide the $25 million winner sparked reactions from netizens and PGA Tour pros, too. Among the most talked-about aspects was the match play that even led to criticism.

Conflicting opinions about the big Tour Championship format change by Jay Monahan & Co.

The change in format for the Tour Championship has raised a lot of debate in the community. Some have shown support for the change in format, while others have questioned if the PGA Tour could have done something better. Max Homa is one of the golfers who spoke in favor of the recent changes. He mentioned that the Tour Championship was a fair contest now.

He believes that Jay Monahan should focus on making “it about winning something and not cultivating it, to like make sure that the guy who had the best year is going to probably win.” Homa, who finished 6th after the Playoffs preceding the Tour Championship, suggested that it’s quite demotivating to chase a golfer who has a 6-stroke advantage against you right from the tee.

However, the netizens weren’t as much in favor of the changes as the golfer. They have stated their displeasure with the format change soon after the reports came in. Instead, the fans were debating that an elimination-style match play format would have worked better for the Tour Championship. Some also said that the stroke advantage was better than the boring, straightforward strokeplay format that the PGA Tour has opted for instead. We will only find out if the changes will be a hit among the fans on August 24, 2025, when the Tour Championship with the new format concludes.