Major champion slams PGA Tour's postseason: "Do we really need playoffs in golf?"

England's Matthew Fitzpatrick has taken aim at the PGA Tour's playoffs format.

The postseason began, as ever, at the FedEx St. Jude Championship in Memphis - with only the top 70 players in the FedEx Cup standings qualifying for the $20m event at TPC Southwind.

The field was whittled down again to 50 for this week's BMW Championship in St. Louis, and only the top 30 will advance to the Tour Championship at East Lake.

Fitzpatrick told reporters at Bellerive Country Club that he feels the current format is unfair as it doesn't reward consistency across the season.

"I've said it a lot about the playoffs, I understand the playoffs in the U.S. are a very big thing in other sports, and it's obviously hard to do that with golf because of the format of golf," said Fitzpatrick.

"I think the player who has played the best all year from January to next week deserves to be the FedExCup champion, the guy who has made the most points, which, you know, is going to be Scottie Scheffler pretty much.

"And that's how it should be. I feel like if you look in the past with the playoffs, I think it was sensible to reduce the points now for these two events.

"No offence to people, but you could have like one good week and jump a ton of spaces, and that's not really deserving of someone who's played so well over the season.

"I think obviously it looks like we're heading more that way to rewarding people who played the best over the long season."

Fitzpatrick has had a stellar season on the PGA Tour, winning three times.

He won the Valspar Championship in March and got the better of the aforementioned Scheffler in a sudden-death playoff at the RBC Heritage a week after The Masters.

Fitzpatrick also teamed up with his younger brother, Alex, to win the PGA Tour's lone team event in Louisiana.

Cameron Young denied Fitzpatrick another win at The Players. 

His exploits mean that he is currently second in the standings behind runaway leader Scheffler.

He added: "From someone who is English, do we really need playoffs in golf? It's just not really a thing in the UK."

Fitzpatrick is not the first player to comment on the format.

Every year the postseason is heavily scrutinised by current and former players as well as media commentators. 

Former PGA Tour member turned Golf on CBS analyst Johnson Wagner said the playoffs "get worse and worse every year".

Wagner suggested that the points should be reset once the playoffs begin.

"Just because you're the number one seed in the NFL, yes, you get a bye, and there's a way to go about that, but I don't care if you're Scottie Scheffler or Rory McIlroy, if you don't perform in the playoffs, you're out of there."