OPEN MINI PLAYERThe FedEx Cup playoffs could be about to get smaller, dropping from four events to three as part of a planned change to end the PGA Tour season prior to Labor Day and before the NFL and college football hog the American sporting consciousness.
Mike Kirby of The Sun Chronicle writes about the on-going rumor that the FedEx Cup playoffs will contract in size and that the Boston area's Dell Technologies Championship will be the odd tournament out of the rotation.
New PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, who was the first tournament director of the now 14-year-old Labor Day weekend stop at TPC Boston, has said he is actively pursuing a truncating of the official schedule. That would mean "likely" dropping a playoff event, moving up the start of the playoffs and facilitating that move by changing the date of The Players Championship from May back to its long-standing March date and asking the PGA of America to move the PGA Championship from August to May.
While the PGA of America hasn't officially signed off on the change, the body is looking at the possible advantages of being the second major and playing in May.
Kirby's piece doesn't break any new ground at all, but it does lay out what's been talked about since last fall, when the specter of changes for the 2019-20 season, when a renewal of FedEx's title sponsorship (or another company taking over the Cup name) would start.
Ultimately, the Boston-area event could wind up moving into the regular season or shuttering altogether. However, the latter is unlikely considering the support for the event and that it's played on a PGA Tour-owned TPC track, meaning there aren't fees associated with hosting the tournament on the course.
