By: Rich Styles

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

The Tour Championship at East Lake in Atlanta is history.

Also making history is the amazing comeback of Tiger Woods. From 2008 to 2013, Tiger has dealt with family issues, injuries, surgeries….a fall from the top.

Now he is back. He has proved to his doubters that he can win, he can still play and he is ready for a full schedule for 2018-2019 season.

He is a changed Tiger. He has enabled the purses in all PGA Tour events to grow to what some would call unbelievable amounts of money, he is helped TV ratings increase and he has helped ticket sales.

Look at the crowd at East Lake on the 18^th hole, I have not seen anything like that in a long time. I said Tiger has changed. He has in the following ways….he is a Dad, he is humble and he is grateful to be playing the game his Mom and Dad raised him to be playing from an early age. He is a champion again.

The Tour Championship could not have written a better script for a Sunday afternoon.

Tiger and Rory in the final group. Allison Fillmore, Tournament Director for the Tour Championship text me on Sunday when I said, “it could not be any better, Tiger and Rory, final group.”  She texted right back…”I know, right!”

Half of the final pairing lived up to the hype. Tiger played well.  Rory did not. Finishing ahead of Tiger was Justin Rose, who calmly and methodically, worked his way around the course to win the FedEx Cup and $10M. The story most will remember this year, will be that Tiger won the Tour Championship and oh yeah, another guy won the FedEx Cup.

Next year, the Tour Championship will be held in August and will have a different format.

Over the years, the average winning score was -11.  Now the leader of the FedEx Cup going into the Tour Championship will be at -10 under. Others will also begin under par based on their ranking of FedEx points.

I have talked with many golf writers, who say they do not fully understand the new format but by the time the Tour Championship rolls along to next August, it will be written about, talked about enough that it will be more clear.

Fans, writers, etc are excited for the next season of the PGA Tour which begins in California and then the first half ends at the RSM Classic at Sea Island Resort. The Top 25 of the web.com tour get to play all five of these tournaments.

Then the Tour does a reshuffle based on their performance in these five tournaments and then they can begin to schedule for 2019.

Plus several tournaments will have date changes. The Players will move to March; the Masters in April; PGA Championship moves to May at Beth Page; U.S. Open in May at Pebble Beach; The Open in July at Royal Portrush Golf Club and the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club in August.

This should help with TV ratings since college and NFL will not have regular season games until September. That is the main reason for the changes. We will see.

Many say that the PGA Tour starts and ends in Georgia. Next year it will begin in FL and end in GA. It will be another exciting year and there are 156 tour pros who would like to win the FexEx Cup and the new prize to the winner of the Tour Championship of $15M. Not a bad way to end the Tour schedule. Not bad at all.