Rory McIlroy has been warned he may not be able to skip the FedEx Cup’s first playoff for much longer, after he elected not to play in one of the three legs.
The reigning Masters champion is the only player from a field of 70 that won’t be taking to the course for the £15million event at TPC Southwind this week.
Peter Malnati, a player director on the PGA Tour Policy Board, admitted that he was “very” concerned that a top star such as McIlroy would not be competing. With three wins this year, the Northern Ireland star has already found himself in second place behind Scottie Scheffler in the rankings and has no sporting reason to play beyond an ambition to win the tournament.
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He has already secured a place in the second playoff event, the BMW Championship, though he could still drop in the season-long standings.
When asked if players could be punished in the future for missing playoff events, Malnati replied with a thinly-veiled threat: “I think there is stuff in the works and I’ll leave it at that.”
But Webb Simpson, a fellow player director on the tour board, appeared to have no issue with McIlroy’s decision.
“I think it’s too hard of a thing to make guys have to play. We’re still a sport where you can play when you want to play,” Simpson said.
“I knew I couldn’t fall more than one spot and I thought losing one stroke at East Lake was worth a week of rest because I was toast. I don’t know Rory’s reason but I totally get it. It’s a hard to thing to fix.”
McIlroy is far from the first player to skip such an event. Tiger Woods did so in both 2007 and 2019, citing fatigue and an oblique strain on those occasions.
In 2007, Woods withdrew from the inaugural FedEx Cup event but went on to win the final two playoff events and claim the first cup.
McIlroy’s decision should not come as a surprise to tour chiefs, however, having signalled his intention to pull out nine months ago. “I finished, basically, dead last there (last) year, and only moved down one spot in the playoff standings,” he said in November.
Penalties may be enforced for players who follow in McIlroy’s footsteps moving forward, but Jordan Spieth, who was a former tour player policy director, thinks that such absences will remain uncommon.
“You might have one or two guys do that for an event but I don’t think it will become a thing because they are still huge events against the best players in the world,” Spieth said. “I think they’re trying to figure out how to make sure you don’t skip both of them and ideally neither of them.”
