Would Scottie Scheffler Have Been Inevitable Under the Old TOUR Championship Rules?

Leveling the Playing Field Only Gets Golf So Far

In the 18-year history of the FedExCup, there has never been a back-to-back season-long champion—not Tiger Woods, not Rory McIlroy, not Dustin Johnson.

Scottie Scheffler may have been in the best position to become the first, if not for one rule change: instead of season-long FedExCup points carrying through to the final event—or being converted into a staggered start at East Lake Golf Club—the PGA Tour now hits the proverbial “reset button,” with every player starting at even par.

Even though Scheffler is a sizable favorite to become golf’s first repeat winner of this massive payday (+150 on FanDuel), we can figure out how much this rule change affects his probability to win by using Monte Carlo simulations. In other words, we can recreate the TOUR Championship multiple times and determine how often Scheffler is the winner.

I would like to run two sets of these types of simulations for this golf tournament, but with different rules. The first involves incorporating the staggered start the Tour used to have (e.g. the leader in points begins at -10, second place is at -8, all the way down to even par for the last golfers to make the season-long cut). Let’s also assume every golfer is of equal abilities (a tough assumption to stomach, but bear with me). If we run 10,000 simulations with these rules, here’s how often the top ten won the FedExCup:

Even if Scheffler were just a solid golfer and not historically excellent, finishing with the most points automatically means he would win the FedExCup more than 20% of the time.

Of course, not all golfers are equal, some are better than others. One way to quantify just how much better Scheffler has been playing is by converting his odds to win this weekend to an implied probability of winning. Here, his +150 number means he should win 40% of the time. Again, he doesn’t have a scoring advantage this week, but if you believe the markets, 40% of the time he should beat this 30-golfer field.

Butt, what would have been the likelihood of another Scheffler victory had the PGA Tour included a staggered start? We can use these live Vegas odds as a way to evaluate overall ability, so Scheffler’s +150 number is significantly higher than second-place Rory McIlroy’s +850, then Tommy Fleetwood at 14/1, etc. Using Vegas odds as a proxy for ability, here’s what the staggered start probabilities look like:

Astoundingly, Scheffler would have won the FedExCup more than 95% of the time, assuming these Vegas odds are sharp. Rory McIlroy, who’s had a phenomenal season including a win at the Masters, would only win 2% of the time because of Scheffler’s dominance and McIlroy’s two-stroke deficit.

It’s fair to react with skepticism that any golfer, even with a two-stroke lead over second place, would have a 95% chance to win any tournament. My takeaway with this exercise is Scheffler’s +150 is an overreaction. If you look at this year’s Tour results, nearly all tournaments Scheffler didn’t win feature golfers who are in this field (e.g. McIlroy, Justin Rose, Cameron Young, etc.). Scheffler’s odds shouldn’t change much just because of a smaller field. The only ones who could reasonably take the title away from Scheffler are playing this weekend, with perhaps just a handful of exceptions. Last weekend, Scheffler was approximately a +230 favorite to win the BMW Championship. I would need to see something around that number to feel comfortable betting on him, even though he is playing almost as well as any golfer ever has.

I would feel more comfortable betting on Rory McIlroy, who may be at a discount after not playing the first round of the FedExCup Playoffs and finished T12 at the BMW Championship. He’s had success at East Lake and ranks second on the Tour in key metrics like Strokes Gained: Total and scoring average. At +850, he offers value.