While many on the PGA Tour have raised eyebrows this week following Rory McIlroy’s decision to skip the first leg of the FedEx Cup Playoffs at the St. Jude Championship, one player director on the Tour board isn’t sounding the alarm on protocol changes.
This was not an unexpected move from McIlroy ahead of the tournament in Memphis, Tennessee. He’s sitting out in an effort to reduce his overall workload on the season and said last year he planned to follow a previous script since playoff standings likely would not be critically impacted.
“I think it’s too hard of a thing to make guys have to play,” Webb Simpson said during an interview with GolfWeek. “We’re still a sport where you can play when you want to play.”
Simpson’s one of several players who has passed on FedEx Cup Playoffs events in the past for more rest. Tiger Woods, Jim Furyk, Shane Lowry and Tommy Fleetwood are among those who have without penalty.
Simpson said he was slotted third in the FedEx Cup rankings in 2020 before withdrawing from the BMW Championship to focus in on the Tour Championship thereafter.
“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,” Simpson said. “I don’t know Rory’s reason but I totally get it. It’s a hard to thing to fix.”
Each leg of the FedEx Cup offers four times as many points as regular-season events, but McIlroy has a sizable lead on the rest of the field behind Scottie Scheffler and cannot be knocked past the top-50 and top-30 thresholds required for the other events.
Peter Malnati, a player director on the PGA Tour Policy Board, said this week he is “very concerned” with one of the world’s top players electing to skip one of the three playoff legs and said possible rule changes were “in the works” before deciding not to elaborate further.
McIlroy’s won thee times on tour this year, giving him 29 for his career. His victory at Augusta National in April was his fifth major, tying him with six other golfers behind many of the sport’s all-time legends in the category.