TPC Boston loses annual FedEx Cup playoff tourney
For the first time since 2002, the Boston area will not be on the PGA Tour schedule next year.
However, all is not lost for area golf fans, as The Northern Trust, the first leg of the FedEx Cup playoffs, will begin a rotation between Boston and New York City. Liberty National in Jersey City will host next year’s event while TPC Boston in Norton will serve as host in 2020 and 2022. The Northern Trust will have the top 125 players from the FedEx Cup standings in the field.
TPC Boston hosted a FedEx Cup playoff event each Labor Day weekend since 2003, last year and this as the Dell Technologies Championship and as the Deutsche Bank Championship for its first 14 years.
Past champions include Rory McIlroy (twice), Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson. Justin Thomas is the defending champion, after a 3-shot victory, one of his five last season that helped him win the FedEx Cup.
“It was a tough decision on folding the Dell Technologies event after this year, and the reason it was so tough is that it has been a great event for 15-plus years,” said PGA Tour chief tournament and competitions officer Andy Pazder. “Then we sat back and thought: Is there a way to have our cake and eat it too, if you will, by rotating in some fashion into Boston with a playoff event ideally, or another event. We had conversations with our sponsors of the first playoff event, Northern Trust, and they looked at it very closely and felt that it would serve their objectives of being a title sponsor by having the event rotating in and out of the two biggest markets in the Northeast.
“Once Northern Trust was supportive — our players thoroughly enjoy playing TPC Boston, it’s a course that’s evolved considerably over time — and we think it is a win-win all the way around.”
Preparations for the final Dell Technologies Championship are underway and the 100-player field will have its unique Monday finish for one last time on Sept. 3.
The decision to remove Boston as an annual stop was one of many as the PGA Tour trimmed the schedule by one to 46 tournaments and the playoffs from four events to three to avoid the start of college football and the NFL.
The major changes include moving The Players Championship from May to March and the PGA Championship from August to May. The PGA Tour will return to the Detroit and Minneapolis areas and leave Washington, D.C. Events in Houston and West Virginia will sit out next season before returning in 2019.
“It’s been our stated objective for several years to create better sequencing of our tournaments that golf fans around the world can engage in from start to finish,” PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan said in a statement. “And by concluding at the end of August, the FedEx Cup playoffs no longer have the challenge of sharing the stage with college and professional football.”
This year’s Tour Championship ends Sept. 23. In 2019, the season-long race for the $10 million top prize will end on Aug. 25.
The 2018-19 season tees off Oct. 4-7 with the Safeway Open in Napa, Calif.