Fans wanted a harder course. Here’s how the PGA Tour is responding

This is the time of year for numbers. All kinds of ‘em. FedEx Cup points. Ryder Cup rankings. Top 70, top 50, top 30. They’re all numbers. But one important set of digits gets overlooked as players jockey for positions in August. And the Tour is looking to do something about it, by making East Lake Golf Club play as hard as it ever has. 

Remember Jay Monahan’s press conference from March at the Players Championship? Seven different times he mentioned “Fan Forward,” the catch-all initiative the Tour has taken on to push its product forward while listening to fans. The Tour surveyed more than 50,000 fans to hear what issues and improvements need the most consideration, landing on four key modes for change.

Among them: adjusting the competition — any part that seems necessary — inclusive of, and in many ways directly targeting the long-flawed Tour Championship.

But why?

When a majority of 50,000 fans categorize your season-ending championship as “needs work,” do you need a why? One answer would be the TV ratings of what is supposed to be one of the Tour’s crown jewel events has sagged down toward the level of most Tour events. The 2.7 rating the Tour Championship did last year, for instance, barely cleared what the John Deere Classic did this summer. (One might expect ratings should be up automatically in 2025, but we shall see.) The bottom line: golf fans talk with their eyeballs, or their survey responses, and the Tour has an interest in gaining more eyeballs by listening to those responses.

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Out goes the Starting Strokes handicap that rewarded top players for their season-long performance. In comes a classic, 72-hole stroke-play contest at East Lake. To get the word out, the Tour marketing team carved out a “Straight Up” commercial campaign, with an ode to Paula Abdul no less, reminding viewers that the Tour Championship begins with a level playing field. 

The Tour was asked by many of its survey respondents to make the Tour Championship stand out on the Tour schedule as one of the most difficult tournaments to win, and thus the FedEx Cup one of the most difficult prizes to win. In other words, make it tough to get to East Lake, and make East Lake tough when you get there. During last year’s four rounds, Collin Morikawa’s 66-63-67-66 performance would amount to 22 under par. Sahith Theegala shot 21 under. Scottie Scheffler, who benefitted from 10 “Starting Strokes” still shot 20 under par without them. 

So, how does the Tour defend against low scores? Its Rules Committee is about to show us. 

Players received a few clues last week in a monthly newsletter shared by the Tour. The setup at East Lake will include a handful of changes to help push the winning score back in the direction of single digits under par. 

For starters, par will be changed from 71 to 70 by turning the par-5 14th hole back into a long par-4. The 2024 edition of the event saw the 14th played as a 580-yard par-5 following Andrew Green’s renovation. The hole played 60 yards longer than in 2023, equating to a 4.33 average, the easiest score (to par) on the property. A year prior, at 520 yards, it played to a 4.125 average, the 4th-toughest. In 2025, with it playing 530 yards, look for the 15th the return to that 4th-toughest area on the scorecard. 

Just like that, they’ve eliminated four strokes (according to par). But wait! There’s more. 

The rough at East Lake will also be cut longer than ever before. Back in 2021, the Tour Championship was played with the rough at 2.5 inches across the grounds. In two weeks East Lake’s rough will be cut around 3.5 inches, at least a half inch longer than the tournament has seen in the past. It’s not quite the rough length that the famously-difficult Memorial tournament offers players, but it’s close. 

The green speeds at East Lake will also be cranked up, slightly, so the putting surfaces run at a speed of 13.5 feet, rather than, say, just 13 feet, as was the case in 2021. A handful of other changes are being implemented to individual holes, like the fairway on 17 being narrowed slightly, or additional trees being planted along seven different fairways, but those may fit the aesthetic changes of East Lake rather than the competition-focused moves above. 

Let’s be clear about one thing — this is all very subtle. It’s become an increasingly fraught practice to over-challenge the best golfers in the world. But extra-thick rough, longer holes and noticeably quicker greens? It will add up to something on the scorecards the boys sign in a couple weeks. Will it be enough to get the winning tally to single digits under par, rather than 22 under? We will wait and see. In the meantime, pray for wind.