'Who knows at this point?' Rory McIlroy addresses decision to skip $20m PGA Tour event

Rory McIlroy defended his decision to skip the first leg of the PGA Tour's playoffs. 

McIlroy, 36, was a notable absentee from the FedEx St. Jude Championship at TPC Southwind last week.

The Masters champion was eligible to compete in Memphis as one of the top 70 in the overall standings. 

But he decided to take an extra week off to re-charge his batteries ahead of a busy stretch of golf that includes the Ryder Cup next month. 

He has also committed to playing in India and Australia later this year. 

McIlroy's decision was greeted with a few raised eyebrows, including existing PGA Tour members.

Player director Peter Malnati said he was 'very concerned' with McIlroy's choice whilst Nate Lashley made a pointed remark about the Ulsterman on X.

McIlroy was asked about his decision ahead of the BMW Championship at Caves Valley Golf Club in Maryland.

"A lot of the guys aren't 18 years into their professional career either," McIlroy told reporters on Wednesday.

"I feel like I'm in a little bit of a different position than some of the guys. 

"Yeah, as I said, I'm playing nine times between now and the end of the year, so I've still got a pretty busy stretch coming up.

"I just think that extra week off will do me good with the events coming up. Some big events that are important to me [such as] the Irish Open, Wentworth, obviously the Ryder Cup. 

"I want to try to win my seventh Race to Dubai over in Europe as well. 

"There's some things that are still important to me that I want to go play in. That was a big part of the reason why I wanted to take that extra week off last week."

"Who knows at this point?"

Only the top 30 in the FedEx Cup standings will advance to the season-ending Tour Championship at East Lake. 

In May, the PGA Tour confirmed they were eliminating the starting-strokes format, but the winner of the tournament will also be crowned the FedEx Cup champion. 

McIlroy was asked whether he would consider the winner of the Tour Championship the winner of a season-long race. 

"Who knows at this point?" came the reply. 

"It's hard. It's like every other sport has - or every other American sport has playoffs, and they sort of try to make a big deal of the end of the season. I think it's hard in golf... look, I come from a place where like the Premier League, Liverpool won the Premier League last year with five games to spare. 

"That's sometimes what happens in sports. Sometimes you have guys or you have a team that is just that much better than everyone else that season, and they are the deserving winner.

"I think from a player perspective, it seems like the consensus was that people didn't like the starting strokes. So to get rid of that is a good thing.

"But I now think that the Tour Championship not being starting strokes, it's sort of its own - it's its own thing now. 

"Obviously you win the Tour Championship, which then means you win the FedExCup, but I don't necessarily think that means that you're the season-long winner - unless Scottie Scheffler wins it and he is the season-long winner. 

"Everyone knows Scottie Scheffler is the - you know, he's won two majors this year. He's head and shoulders above the rest in terms of the points going into this week. He'll be ahead of everyone in the points going into next week. So he's deservedly got his bonus all the way through.

"Then everything resets, and it's sort of -- yeah, I guess I see it as more of a one-off event than a culmination of the entire season."

Does he have any solutions of his own?

"It could be something where - and I've heard this idea kicked around, where everything resets after Wyndham and then the top 70 just play for the top 50 spots to get into the next week and then everything resets again here, and then the top 30 from this week then make it to the Tour Championship.

"I mean, if you want to try to make it straight playoffs and elimination, I think that would be a good way to go."

He added: "You're trying to balance a lot of different things. You're trying to balance the competitive integrity of what the playoffs are, but you're also trying to keep the media rights partners happy, you're trying to keep the sponsors happy. 

"They're the people that are paying the big bucks to expect the big names to be playing in their golf tournaments, and that's a delicate balance."