The Tour Championship (stylized as the TOUR Championship) is a golf tournament that is part of the

PGA Tour The PGA Tour (stylized in all capital letters as PGA TOUR by its officials) is the organizer of professional golf tours in the United States and North America. It organizes most of the events on the flagship annual series of tournaments also k ...

. It has historically been one of the final events of the PGA Tour season; prior to 2007, its field consisted exclusively of the top 30 money leaders of the past PGA Tour season. Starting in 2007, it was the final event of the four-tournament

FedEx Cup The FedEx Cup is a championship trophy for the PGA Tour. Its introduction marked the first time that men's professional golf had a playoff system. Announced in November 2005, it was first awarded in 2007. Rory McIlroy is the 2022 champion. T ...

Playoffs, with eligibility determined by FedEx Cup points accumulated throughout the season. From 2019 onward, the FedEx Cup was reduced to three events, and the Tour Championship is now held in late August rather than mid-September. While originally followed by the

PGA Tour Fall Series The PGA Tour Fall Series was name of the events on the PGA Tour that covered the end of the calendar year from 2007 to 2012 after the Tour Championship. Beginning in 2013, these events became part of the PGA Tour season, which from that point began ...

(for those competing for qualifying exemptions in the following season), a re-alignment of the PGA Tour's season schedule in 2013 made the Tour Championship the final event of the season. From 1987 to 1996, several courses hosted the event. Beginning in 1997, the event alternated between

Champions Golf Club Champions Golf Club is a 36-hole private golf club located in Houston, Texas. Established in 1957 by multiple major champions Jack Burke Jr. and Jimmy Demaret, who were both raised in the city, Champions carries a long history for Houston golf. B ...

Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...

and

East Lake Golf Club East Lake Golf Club is a private golf club 5 miles east of downtown Atlanta, Georgia. Established in 1904, it is the oldest golf course in the city. East Lake was the home course of golfer Bobby Jones and much of its clubhouse serves as a tribu ...

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

; since 2004, East Lake has been the event's permanent home.

Format: 1987–2006

From its debut in 1987 through

2006 File:2006 Events Collage V1.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2006 Winter Olympics open in Turin; Twitter is founded and launched by Jack Dorsey; The Nintendo Wii is released; Montenegro 2006 Montenegrin independence referendum, votes to declare ...

, the top 30 money winners on the PGA Tour after the penultimate event qualified for the event. It took place in early November, the week after the comparable event in Europe, the Volvo Masters, which allowed players who are members of both the PGA Tour and the

European Tour The European Tour (currently known as the DP World Tour for sponsorship reasons), legally the PGA European Tour is the leading men's professional golf tour in Europe. The organisation also operates the European Senior Tour (for players aged fi ...

to play in both end of season events. After the Tour Championship, the money list for the season was finalized. There were a number of additional events between the Tour Championship and Christmas which were recognized by the PGA Tour, but prize money won in them was unofficial. Also, because this tournament's field was not as large as other golf tournaments, there was no 36-hole cut; all players who started the event were credited with making the cut and received some prize money.

Format: 2007–2018

Brandt Snedeker 2012 PGA Tour Championship Win

In 2007, the Tour Championship moved from November to mid-September, where it ended the four-tournament

FedEx Cup Playoffs The FedEx Cup is a championship trophy for the PGA Tour. Its introduction marked the first time that men's professional golf had a playoff system. Announced in November 2005, it was first awarded in 2007. Rory McIlroy is the 2022 champion. Th ...

. As in past years, 30 players qualified for the event, but the basis for qualification was no longer prize money. Instead, FedEx Cup points accumulated during the regular PGA Tour season and then during the three preceding playoff events determined the participants. Beginning in 2009, the assignment and awarding of points assured that if any of the top five FedEx Cup point leaders entering The Tour Championship won the event, that player would also won the FedEx Cup. Therefore, it still remained possible for one player to win the Tour Championship and another player to win the FedEx Cup. For example, Tiger Woods won the 2018 Tour Championship but finished second in the FedEx Cup, while

Justin Rose Justin Peter Rose, (born 30 July 1980) is an English professional golfer who plays most of his golf on the PGA Tour, while keeping his membership on the European Tour. He won his first major championship at the 2013 U.S. Open (golf), 2013 U.S. O ...

won the FedEx Cup despite finishing the tournament tied for fourth, because Woods entered the Tour Championship 20th in overall points while Rose was 2nd. 2007 was also the inaugural year for the Tour's

Fall Series The PGA Tour Fall Series was name of the events on the PGA Tour that covered the end of the calendar year from 2007 to 2012 after the Tour Championship. Beginning in 2013, these events became part of the PGA Tour season, which from that point bega ...

, which determined the rest of the top 125 players eligible for the following year's FedEx Cup, which made the event no longer the final tournament of the season. However, starting in 2013, the Tour Championship was the final tournament of the PGA Tour season; seasons begin in October of the previous calendar year. Since 2007, those who qualified for the Tour Championship earned a

Masters Tournament The Masters Tournament (usually referred to as simply The Masters, or the U.S. Masters outside North America) is one of the four major championships in professional golf. Scheduled for the first full week of April, the Masters is the first maj ...

invitation. For 2020, players who qualify for the Tour Championship will be invited to the

Sentry Tournament of Champions The Sentry Tournament of Champions is the calendar-year opening tournament of golf's PGA Tour season, played in Hawaii on the island of Maui. The tournament was founded in 1953; for most of its history the field was restricted to golfers who won a ...

, a byproduct of tournament cancellations from the coronavirus pandemic. Prior to 2016, hole 18 at

was a par 3, which had been criticized as lacking drama for fans. Starting in 2016, the PGA Tour reversed the nines at East Lake for the Tour Championship so that play now finishes on a more exciting par 5 hole.

Format: 2019–present

Beginning in 2019, the tournament adopted a new format in order to ensure that the winner would also be the FedEx Cup champion. Using a method similar to the

Gundersen method The Gundersen method is a method in the Nordic combined developed by Gunder Gundersen, a Nordic combined athlete from Norway, that was first used in the 1980s. In it, the ski jumping portion comes first, and points in the ski jump determine when ind ...

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, the player with the most FedEx Cup points leading into the tournament starts at 10 under par. The player with the second most points starts at −8, the third at −7, and so on down to the fifth at −5. Players ranked 6 through 10 begin at −4; 11 through 15 at −3; and so on, down to numbers 26 to 30 who will start at even par. For purposes of the

Official World Golf Ranking The Official World Golf Ranking is a system for rating the performance level of professional golfers. It was started in 1986. The rankings are based on a player's position in individual tournaments (i.e. not pairs or team events) over a "rolli ...

only aggregate scores are taken into account, disregarding any starting scores in relation to par.

Calamity Jane trophy

The ''Calamity Jane'' is a sterling silver replica of Bobby Jones's original "Calamity Jane" putter, that has been presented to the winner of the Tour Championship since 2005. In 2017, it was made the official trophy for the tournament. Each winner before 2005 has been awarded one retroactively.

Winner's exemption reward

From 1998 to 2018, the Tour Championship winner, if not already exempt by other means, received a 3-year PGA Tour exemption. Since 2019, the Tour Championship winner has been directly awarded the

and a 5-year PGA Tour exemption.

Tournament hosts

Winners

Notes

References

External links

Coverage on the PGA Tour's official site
- Includes past winners and runners-up of tournament from 1987 to 2010
East Lake Golf Club official site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tour Championship PGA Tour events FedEx Cup Golf in Georgia (U.S. state) Golf in California Golf in Texas Golf in Oklahoma Golf in North Carolina Golf in South Carolina Sports competitions in Atlanta 1987 establishments in Texas