Rory McIlroy found a loophole in the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup playoffs, and it has become an awkward subplot this week when golf’s version of the postseason begins at the 2025 FedEx St. Jude Championship in Memphis.
The 2025 Masters champion said months ago he wanted to play less in 2025, and even hinted at the unorthodox move he might make to follow through on that promise.
“I’ll probably not play the first playoff event in Memphis,” McIlroy told The Telegraph in November 2024. “I mean, I finished basically dead last there this year (tied for 68th in a 70-man field) and only moved down one spot in the playoff standings.”
McIlroy has appeared in just 14 PGA Tour events this year after playing in 19 tournaments in 2024, but still ranks No. 2 behind Scottie Scheffler in the FedEx Cup standings. Since he began playing extensively on the PGA Tour in 2009, McIlroy has averaged 16 events per year. So did he follow through on his decision to not start the FedEx Cup playoffs in Memphis?
Here’s the latest on McIlroy’s status heading into the FedEx Cup playoffs and the 2025 FedEx St. Jude Championship:
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Is Rory McIlroy playing at FedEx St. Jude Championship?
No. McIlroy was not included on the official field list for the 2025 FedEx St. Jude Championship, beginning Thursday, Aug. 7 at TPC Southwind in Memphis.
His decision to skip the tournament means the field will be set at 69 golfers instead of 70. The top 50 golfers advance to the next round of the FedEx Cup playoffs at the BMW Championships in Owings Mills, Maryland on Aug 14-17.
The PGA Tour also eliminated the stroke advantage for the Tour Championship that concludes its FedEx Cup playoffs this year. Instead of giving golfers with the most FedEx Cup points an advantage in the Tour Championship, all golfers will start from even par. In the past, the stroke advantage had made the first two FedEx Cup events more important because they helped determine starting position at East Lake.
Why is Rory McIlroy not playing?
In September, when McIlroy initially told reporters he wanted to decrease his playing schedule, he noted that he “hit a wall” during the 2024 season. He wound up skipping notable PGA Tour events like The Sentry, the RBC Heritage and Jack Nicklaus’ Memorial Tournament this season.
“It’s been a long season, and I’m going to just have to think about trying to build in a few extra breaks here and there next year and going forward because I felt like I hit a bit of a wall sort of post-U.S. Open, and still feel a little bit of that hangover,” McIlroy said last September.
He noted at the time that he planned to play 18 to 20 tournaments in 2025. By November, McIlroy had pinpointed the first playoff event in Memphis as one of those additional breaks. He also leads third-place Sepp Straka by more than 800 points in the FedEx Cup standings and already clinched a spot in the BMW Championship next week.
Contributing: Jonah Dylan, Memphis Commercial Appeal
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Is Rory McIlroy playing this week at FedEx St. Jude Championship?
