The Tour Championship is a flawed end to golf’s FedExCup. But here’s why 2018 should be great.

We have made it to the end. Just one more event remains in the PGA Tour’s schedule and it’s the smallest, most exclusive tournament of the year. There are just 30 players left in the FedExCup, which finishes with the fourth playoffs event this week, the traditional Tour Championship in Atlanta. The FedExCup has its problems, and they can often culminate in Atlanta with some counter-intuitive results and boring finishes to a “season-long race.”

But the system is still better than what we had before, and potentially better than some of the major changes rumored for next year. And this 2018 edition could be the perfect way to cap an incredible season. So with just 30 players in the field, I made the effort to come up with 30 people, reasons, effects, and one hopeful remix rap video that should make this one worth monitoring.

1. Tiger Woods’ finishing the greatest comeback season with a win

Tiger made it to the finish line. In that first start back in January at Torrey Pines, the hope was just that he could stay healthy for those two events playing competitive golf. That he could make it to the final 30 of the FedExCup playoffs was pure fantasy. But he’s here, earning a spot in the smallest, most exclusive field for the first time in five years and making his 18th start of the year.

Tiger is playing like a top-15 player in the world and striking it like one of the best two or three in the world. He has done everything this year but win. Now, with just 29 others in the field, this seems like as good an opportunity as any to get his first W since 2013 and finish off arguably the greatest comeback year in the history of the sport. He got a week off to rest and he should contend.

2. $10 million reasons

It’s unseemly. It’s gaudy. It’s unnecessary. You’ll hear about it too much on the broadcast. But that grand $10 million bonus payout to the winner adds a tinge of intrigue that doesn’t exist every other week of the year. There is no bigger windfall on the pro circuits.

3. A new American star?

If Bryson DeChambeau (No. 1 in FEC standings) or Tony Finau (No. 3) win in Atlanta, they automatically win the FedExCup. A win for L’Artiste DeChambeau would be his third in four starts and push him farther up the top 10 in the world rankings. The win for Finau would be just the second of his career but come at the end of a season in which he contended at almost every major event. Both had an untraditional path to get to the highest level of the game, continue to play with a style that’s uniquely their own, and have fascinating backgrounds that set them apart. A FedExCup title is not a major but it would feel like just the start for another breakout American star.

4. JT B2B

Unlike Finau and DeChambeau, Justin Thomas is already a major winner and a young American star. No one has ever won back-to-back FedExCups and Tiger Woods is the only player to ever win more than one. Thomas could become the first to go back-to-back and join his idol and potential Ryder Cup partner as the only player to win the $10 million twice. As with Finau and Bryson, he’s got one of those exclusive “control your own destiny” (another phrase you’ll hear plenty on the broadcast) spots in the top five of the standings. So if JT wins the Tour Championship, he takes his second straight FedExCup.

5. Sandsie on the video board

That top-five auto-win maxim makes the computations pretty easy in real-time if those are the players battling late on Sunday. But as we’ve seen the last few years, that’s not always the case and then it’s a chaotic mix of trying to figure out who needs to do what to win what. That’s where Steve Sands, or as Tiger calls him, “Sandsie,” comes in with his video board like he’s one of those cable news heads on election night. It’s a fine, fun addition to a golf broadcast that we get no other week.

6. DJ Drama

Not to be confused with the DJ once arrested in an Atlanta mixtape raid. But the golf DJ appears to be going through some personal life drama that’s been the subject of blog posts and prompted one Twitter statement on the matter.

Now he’s back playing his first event since that tweet and is also in that top five in the standings with a chance to win his first FedExCup. DJ has been solid since the start of August, but he’s not been world No. 1 DJ and the USA Ryder Cup team needs and wants that DJ for Paris. If nothing else, he appears motivated by the prospect of winning the FEC. This is some Sean Spicer level stuff.

7. Ryder Cup research

Only one player from the USA team is missing this week in East Lake. That’s Jordan Spieth, who unbelievably failed to qualify for Atlanta. But the other 11 players are here and, of course, you don’t want to put much stock into a single stroke play event and what it might mean for a match play event the following week, but that’s what we’re going to do. The Ryder Cup is the best event in golf and when we get this close to it, we tend to view almost everything through that lens. Just, uh, don’t tell the PGA Tour we’re looking at their postseason trying to figure out what it might mean for the Ryder Cup.

8. The new No. 1

This is the first event for our new world no. 1 Justin Rose. He’s the 22nd men’s golfer to become OWGR No. 1 and the first Englishman since Luke Donald back in 2012. Because there was no PGA Tour event last week, he’s technically been No. 1 for two weeks now. So he’s already eclipsed Tom Lehman’s cumulative total of just one week at the top. Good job, Rosey! We’re in an era when that No. 1 spot can pinball from week-to-week so a strong showing from DJ, JT, or Brooks Koepka will bump Rose from the top. Whether Rose relinquishes it or not, getting to No. 1 is an amazing career achievement for a player who spent several years wandering in the wilderness looking for his game.

9. Winless redemption

Hideki Matusyama and Rickie Fowler are too good to post winless seasons. Hideki took a long layoff for injury, but has not felt like the same player since JT beat him last August at the PGA. Rickie had a fine season with five top 10s in 19 starts, but it’s been kind of quiet since that runner-up at the Masters and he’s not won on Tour since February of last year. Winning the Tour Champ is not like winning a major, but a W to cap off the year changes the way you look at a season, especially for these two.

10. The surge

This could be the scene of another Rory surge. It was in Atlanta two years ago where he half-salvaged a major-less summer by capturing the FedExCup. He then took that win into the next week to become the unhinged, raging emotional ace of the Euro Ryder Cup team. He’ll probably fill that position in Paris, too. He’s looked improved in the only two FEC events he played after skipping the first leg to figure out his game. With just 30 players in the field, expect some more noise from Rory again this week as he readies for the Ryder Cup.

11. Bubba Ryder Cup anxiety

The U.S. side got it right with their roster, but that doesn’t mean we can’t finish the season totally carefree. Within the confines of the selection process and auto-bid system, the 12-man team is mostly correct. But you can argue that Bubba Watson is the weakest link and another underwhelming week in Atlanta wouldn’t have you feeling all that great about his prospects going into Paris, whereas ...

12. Ryder Cup regret

We’re quibbling and picking nits, but Xander Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay are probably the two names USA fans would argue for one of the fringe spots on that loaded roster. So it’s worth watching if the X-man can win the Tour Championship for a second straight year or if Cantlay, who wasn’t eligible to challenge Xander for ROY last season, can finish another stout year with a win. That may add a pinch of regret to the US roster. Not a heaping scoop like when Billy Horschel won two tournaments and the FedExCup after rosters were finalized, but just a pinch.

13. Show us something Phil

It’s hard to imagine an American Ryder Cup team without Phil Mickelson. He’s been a mainstay since 1995 but this was the first time he needed a captain’s pick. Jim Furyk did not have to go too far down the points list to pick Phil, so there was merit behind his selection. That said, he’s been an uneven player since his win in March, making more news for off-the-course sideshows than his play. He should be on the roster, but if one of those two aforementioned young guns play well in Atlanta, and Phil goes quietly again, there will be some groaning.

14. Johnny at the end?

This could be one of Johnny Miller’s final PGA Tour events. He’s been TBD the last few years about how long he’ll do this and his contract hasn’t exactly been long-term. Next year is uncertain, but he did tell the AP’s Doug Ferguson he will do the Waste Management Phoenix Open on Super Bowl weekend. He’s said “maybe he’ll do one more year” or just completely scale down. Either way, Johnny is near the end of his legendary run in the NBC booth. So take his acerbity while you can get it.

15. The big move

East Lake is not one of the easiest Tour courses, scoring wise, but with just 30 players in the field, you’re never really out of contention unless you go full meltdown in one of the first two rounds. There are mid-60s numbers out there, usually, and it’s possible to post a 63 to rocket up from the bottom of the board and into the top five in a matter of hours. It’s one more way this extremely small field can add another measure of intrigue on the weekend.

16. The Brooks Koepka paradox

Brooks Koepka is the unquestioned Player of the Year. He’s going to win the award in a runaway vote, if not unanimous. Other players, including Tiger Woods and Justin Thomas, have laughed at the possibility of someone else winning it.

But there’s a scenario where Koepka wins this week, again, and doesn’t win the FedExCup. So you’d have the obvious PoY, someone who won two of the four majors, and the season-ending Tour Championship, not win your Playoffs. Koepka, who has won three majors and just one PGA Tour event, begins the week 7th in the standings behind the likes of Finau and Keegan Bradley, who definitely did not win two majors this year.

17. You waited all year for this

I mean, we’ve had to sit through approximately 300 FedExCup standings updates from the start of last October. We’re at the end. You might as well not bail now.

18. It’s the best golf out there

There’s no LPGA event. The Champions Tour is playing in South Dakota. The Euro Tour has the Portugal Masters going with a few notable names in there. But unlike some other weeks during the heat of summer, there’s not a lot of competition out there. The PGA Tour is the main show and if you want a few minutes of alt-programming to athletes colliding themselves into brain disease, this would be good for that.

19. Everyone gets a money bath

People love to gawk at other people’s money. And the bonus money this week, beyond that winner’s grand prize, is obscene. The second-place finisher in the FEC catches a nice $3 million check. The fifth place finisher is still in seven figures. You can come in last among the group that made it to Atlanta and you will still get $175,000 in bonus cash (that’s in addition to the $144,000 you’d make for coming in dead last at this week’s tournament - -that’s almost $320k for playing last-place golf this week).

The total bonus pool is $35 million and it includes $32,000 bonus payouts to players who did not even make the entire playoffs — those who were outside the top 125 and likely lost their PGA Tour card! It’s a lot of cash, thanks to golf’s favorite courier delivery services company. As you’d expect, Tiger is the all-time bonus cash king with $25,275,000 in career totals, and that comes without playing the FEC the last four years.

The money can suffocate the competition, especially when so many of these players involved are already sitting on piles of loot thanks to these kinds of modern-day cash grabs that populate the schedule. But that doesn’t mean you won’t look and check how much all these players are getting, even for coming in last.

20. European reconnaissance

Not only are 11 of 12 USA team members playing in the final 30, but also half the European roster is teeing it up in the stateside Tour finals. That group includes Rose, Francesco Molinari, Tommy Fleetwood, Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm, and Paul Casey. I’d like to see something positive from Rahm and Casey, who WD’d at the BMW, if I were a Euro fan. So watch for them if you want to start figuring out next week’s competition. Or don’t! Stroke play may mean nothing for a match play event that generally turns the Euros into invincible wizards.

21. Everybody in the boat

Rare is the PGA Tour event when every single player on the field is on the course at the same time. But with such a small window of tee times, that’s what we get at the Tour Championship. So there are options for the TV production to bring to your eyeballs. All 30 are out there at the same time, for at least an hour or so.

22. Because next year could be a circus

Have you seen the proposed format overhaul for next year? As reported by Doug Ferguson at the end of August, we might get the leader starting the Tour Championship at 10-under, with the other 29 players staggered in tiers below him some strokes behind with ground to make up over four days. Starting a tournament at -10 is embracing the #LiveUnderPar credo in the extreme. So maybe we should cherish our normal stroke play event this year before it gets wild in 2019.

23. Pace of play

Unlike the dreadful pace at almost every other event, this thing moves. How could it not? You’ve got twosomes with almost no traffic out on the course to create a jam. If you’re group is not playing the round in under four hours, you should be DQ’d walking off the 18th green.

24. The finisher makes sense now

The Tour made the right call in flipping the nines for this championship. It used to end on a relatively uneventful par-3 and now ends with a par-5 that can yield all sorts of birdie and perhaps an eagle chance for last-second leaderboard movement. Tiger once made eagle at this new 18th more than a decade ago on his way to winning the first FEC.

25. The Rookie of the Year

Aaron Wise is probably going to be your 2018 Rookie of the Year thanks to this late FedExCup Playoffs push. The other primary candidate, Austin Cook, did not make it to Atlanta. Both picked up wins in their first full year on Tour and Cook has been consistent all season. But it’s Wise, the former NCAA champ and potential future superstar, that should lock it up with even a middling week at East Lake.

26. The Horschel Rule redux

In 2014, Billy Horschel ended the season as the hottest golfer on planet earth. He finished runner-up, winner, winner, in the last three events of the FedExCup to run away with the entire thing. He was on fire and would have been a major asset for the U.S. Ryder Cup team the next week in Scotland. The only problem was the roster was finalized some three weeks before his two wins.

So in came the “Horschel rule,” which stated the final captain’s pick would be made at a later date to allow for some unconsciously hot player at the end of the season. In 2016, that pick was made after the Tour Championship, at the very start of Ryder Cup week. This year, that Horschel rule pick was bumped up a tournament and already made with Jim Furyk taking Finau to fill out his roster. You know who is in 9th place in the FEC standings and doesn’t need a ton of help to win his second $10 million cup? It’s Billy Horschel.

Now Billy didn’t deserve a spot over the 12 players who made it, but it would be a blow to have him win the FEC again and be off the roster heading to Europe for the second straight time. Especially since there was a rule created in his name out of that first snub.

27. The Keegan comeback

A few weeks ago I told a friend that my greatest golf memory of Keegan Bradley, who has won an actual major championship, would be his fight with Miguel Angel Jimenez at the WGC Match Play. But Keegan’s win last week at the BMW was one of the better comeback stories following a six-year drought incited by the anchored putting ban. The guy learned to play golf at the highest level a certain way and then was told, all of a sudden, that it was illegal.

So, whatever you think of him, getting back to the winner’s circle on the most competitive tour in the world is an amazing accomplishment. Now he’s in the top five and would win the whole dang thing with another strong showing in Atlanta. Keegan winning the FedExCup would have been a comical proposal just a few weeks ago but it’s very real now. Even if it happened, I’ll still probably hold the MAJ dust-up closer in my memory.

28. The longest shot

Some day, the math will spit out an FEC winner from the bottom of these 30 in the Tour Championship and I will laugh uncontrollably. Patton Kizzire is this year’s last man in, and to win the FedExCup, all that needs to happen, per Golf Channel, is:

Got that? So that shouldn’t be a problem. Love the absurdity of the long shot path to victory.

29. The best at their best

With an exception or two, there’s not really any top player sputtering to the finish line. We’ve seen that plenty in years prior at an event that comes at the very end of a long season. The money matters less when your game is not in shape and you just want the year to be over.

But this year, there’s a strong set at the top of the world rankings all in relative form. DJ’s been quieter than normal and Spieth is not here. But the rest, they’ve all felt like they could win each week, including Tiger. It may go lifeless come Sunday but at the start of the tournament, it feels like we have the possibility for a great battle between two or more stars.

30. The potential for a FedExCup Rap remix

Every year I primarily tune in to the Tour Championship hoping for an updated remix of the FedExCup Rap. Every year I am disappointed. I think that changes this year.

The FedExCup Rap is the infamous video released in 2013 at East Lake that made you cringe from start-to-finish and feel bad for every pro involved. It’s quite possibly the worst thing ever produced in golf and/or music. Reviews came pouring in and they were unanimous and harsh, such as “FedEx this baby down to Guantanamo” from Geoff Shackelford.

The Tour (and perhaps NBC, still unclear) did an admirable job of wiping the thing from the face of the earth. It was nuked off the internet by the afternoon but I’ll never forget that day. If you have a friend in low places, there are absolutely raw files of the incomparable moment still out there on the black market.

The video was a mash-up of golf pros like Adam Scott, Charl Schwartzel, Bill Haas, Jim Furyk, and others trying to rap lyrics provided to them. As you can imagine, it was uncomfortable. And the lyrics they were starting with were awful. Ryan Ballengee transcribed them five years ago to give you a sense of what we were working with and here’s a snippet:

Birdies and bogeys, cheers and groans,

The dream, the scheme

I got a plan coming in, It’s really pretty simple

Just knock ‘em all in

I’m gonna shut up and step up, and try not to mess up

Stand up, show up

and try not to blow up

That’s my goal, to win the FedEx Cup

We’re rhyming “in” with “in” and “up” with “up.” How did this not win an award? I’d strongly encourage you to go read all the lyrics here and seek out the full video if you can find it. It was not the players’ fault — they were put in a no-win situation.

So yeah, every year I tune into the Tour Championship hoping we’ll get a remix that tries to redeem the production that was sent out to the world for just a few hours on that unforgettable day in September 2013. It’s time for an updated, new version.