Course Preview and Fits: Tour Championship

The season ends this week at the Tour Championship at East Lake — 30 players, no cut, and everybody starting on even par for the second straight year now that starting strokes are gone. The purse is $40 million, with $10 million to the winner along with an official victory, the FedEx Cup, and a five-year exemption. Tommy Fleetwood defends after getting to -18 a year ago, which was his first FedEx Cup and his first win on the PGA Tour in the same afternoon. Scottie Scheffler arrives at No. 1 in the standings for the fifth consecutive season, with nothing to show for it once again.

The Course:

East Lake is Bobby Jones’ home course and the oldest golf course in Atlanta, a Donald Ross layout from 1915 that has hosted this event every year since 2005. It plays as a par 70 at 7,490 yards. Andrew Green rebuilt it ahead of the 2024 championship, working from a 1949 aerial photograph that surfaced showing the property before any of the later renovations touched Ross’ work. The fairways are zoysia, the greens are Bermuda, and the rough is Bermuda cut to 3.5 inches. There are 78 bunkers, up from 74 before the work, and water in play on eight holes.

Green’s version debuted in 2024 as a par 71, with the downhill 14th promoted back to the par 5 the members play, and it did not have the bite anyone expected. Collin Morikawa was the low man that week at -22, which inspired the committee to change 14 back to a par 4, returning the par to 70 last year.