ATLANTA – When people say it’s not about the money it’s always about the money. That is unless it’s Rory McIlroy offering his insight into this year’s bonus boost for the FedExCup.

The winner this week at East Lake will claim $15 million, which would qualify as life-changing money for most players. But then McIlroy isn’t most players.

“Who knows what the winner wins at the Masters? I don't know because that's not what it's about,” McIlroy said. “If the FedExCup wants to create a legacy that lasts longer, it doesn't need to be about the money. It should be about the prestige of winning an event that you'll be remembered for.”

That’s not to say money has never been a motivator for McIlroy.

“The British Masters was my first tournament as a pro. I finished 42nd and won like 17,000 pounds. Then the next week I went to the Dunhill, finished third, and won 230,000 pounds,” he recalled. “I'm 18 at the time. I have a debit card, put it in the ATM, and it's like, Would you like to check your balance? I checked my balance, and I was like, oh, wow. I went straight to the jewelry store and bought myself a watch.”

ATLANTA – After winning at last week's BMW Championship, Justin Thomas has a target on his back. Beginning the Tour Championship with a two-shot lead only increases it.

Picking the season finale to have a bad week is never recommended, but in previous years, the FedExCup leader could struggle at East Lake and still finish relatively high in the rankings.

Now, under the new format with the rewarding boost, the leader has just as much to lose as the other 29 players who begin the week behind the 8-ball.

"I think there's much less protection now for the leading players," reigning FedExCup champion Justin Rose said. "If you were leading the FedExCup in the past and you had a poor week, you'd finish maybe second, possibly third in the FedExCup. You have a poor week now, you can finish 12th, 15th, 18th, 20th."

There's two ends to that spectrum.

On one end, there's a guy like Brooks Koepka who put himself in position–with eight top-10s this season, including wins at the PGA Championship and the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational–and has a bit of wiggle room when it comes to this week at the Tour Championship thanks to a consistent season that awarded him the inaugural Wyndham Rewards and the $2 million prize that came with it.

But the other end, the back half of the field is in position to play with more freedom this week, already looking up the leaderboard with less to lose and that same $15 million prize everyone is chasing.

"There's a lot more volatility, I think, with this format, which is what playoff golf is all about, I guess," Rose said. "It's the guys basically bringing their best golf when it counts the most.

ATLANTA – However the next four days at East Lake unfold it’s important to consider how the PGA Tour arrived at this curious crossroads.

Some say strokes-based scoring was born from the most honest of comments in the hectic minutes following Justin Thomas’ runner-up finish at the 2017 Tour Championship. Players like JT aren’t very good at pretending to be happy when they lose. For Thomas, it was his one-stroke loss to Xander Schauffele, not his winning the $10 million FedExCup bonus, that drove his thought process.

“It just wasn't meant to be, wasn't my week this week in terms of winning the golf tournament, but it definitely came with a nice consolation prize,” Thomas said.

There were 10 million reasons why the Tour and FedEx didn’t care to hear how their season-long experiment provided a suitable “consolation” prize and some say it was Thomas’ heat-of-the-moment take that sent the Tour’s number crunchers down a path that will now give the golf world its first net division championship for professionals.

This week’s points leader, Thomas, will begin the Tour Championship at 10 under par. The next four players on the points list will start at 8 under through 5 under, respectively, while Nos. 6-10 will start at 4 under par with the total regressing by one stroke every five players thereafter. Those ranked 26th through 30th start at even par.

To be fair, the circuit was headed for a playoff overhaul long before Thomas spoke his peace, but his words certainly helped the process along and made this week’s big transition easier to understand.

While golf doesn’t do dramatic changes very well, this week’s format is a bona fide paradigm shift which was prompted by a points-based race that was as confusing as it was contrived. When the Tour informed players of the format changes at East Lake, the first question asked was: What’s Steve Sands going to do now?

Since the invention of the playoffs in 2007, the NBC Sports/Golf Channel host had been charged with explaining the complicated system, in real time, to those watching on television. Under the new system, the explanation is exceedingly easier: The player with the lowest score on Sunday at East Lake wins the FedExCup.

Of course, getting to that low score takes some explaining and maybe even a leap of faith by those who aren’t accustomed to seeing professionals give strokes to other professionals.

The new scoring has made it easier for the fan at home to follow along with the action, but it’s probably made things a little more complicated for the players.

“You could shoot the best score of the week and not win the golf tournament. If that happens to someone, it's going to be hard for them to wrap their head around a little bit,” Rory McIlroy said on Wednesday at East Lake.

Based on how strokes-based scoring would have impacted other Tour Championships during the FedExCup era it’s not as much a question of if it might happen. On four occasions since 2007, the player with the week’s lowest score didn’t win the finale. In ’09, Tiger Woods would have beaten Phil Mickelson by four strokes at an event Lefty won by three shots; and in 2011, Luke Donald would have won by three strokes instead of Bill Haas. Donald would have also finished tied for the lead in ’10 with Jim Furyk, who won that year’s Tour Championship.

But the most jarring scenario would have occurred last year when Justin Rose, who began the week second on the points list, would have defeated Woods by three strokes and ruined what was by every measure a seminal moment in Tiger’s career.

By making it easier for the fans to engage with the entire product, the Tour has ignored the competitive soul of any professional. Consider that if the new system was used in ’17, Thomas would have won the event, and the cup, by two strokes after starting the week second on the point list and at 8 under.

It was only apropos that Thomas would offer the final say on this, having been the face of change to so many. If losing the ’17 Tour Championship overshadowed his victory in the season-long race, how would a strokes-based victory feel this year even if he doesn’t shoot the week’s lowest score?

“You guys probably won't believe me, but it will irk me,” Thomas admitted. “I think a lot of people were shocked and a little upset about how I handled just winning FedExCup and $10 million, but, I was like, man, I lost a golf tournament by one and I didn't birdie 18, a par 5, and I felt like I should have won the tournament and had a great chance.”

For all the questions and concerns the new strokes-based scoring addresses, it may be this uniquely competitive notion that will ultimately determine the success of the format. Players are currently saying all the right things, but as we saw in 2017 that can all change in one heated moment on Sunday.

ATLANTA – At this year’s Masters, Justin Thomas unveiled a new 60-degree wedge with “Brook Koepka’s money” engraved into the back.

After holing out on the 16^th hole for eagle on Saturday during last week’s BMW Championship, the first thing Thomas said to his caddie was, “I got some of that Brooks Koepka money.”

Thomas explained on Wednesday at the Tour Championship, where he will begin the week as the points leader and at 10 under par, that he and Koepka have a season-long race based on who has more holeouts.

“I got three holeouts and he's got zero, so I am [leading] right now,” Thomas said.

Koepka said the two came up with the bet, which only counts shots over 50 yards, while playing together in South Korea last fall.

“I can't even remember the last time I holed out,” Koepka said. “I don't really hole out much, so that was a stupid bet on my part. Heck, I'll pay him on Sunday.”

ATLANTA – Rory McIlroy has had enough slow play talk.

The Northern Irishman has always been one of the most outspoken players when it comes to pace of play on the PGA Tour but enough is enough.

“I saw [the European Tour] released a four-point plan, but I only read the headline. I didn't go deeper into it. I've had enough of the slow play stuff,” McIlroy said. “I had two hours of it last week at the [player advisory council] meeting, and that came to nothing.”

The European Tour plan will include increased timing of players and more proactive targeting of slower players. Players will also be penalized a stroke after just two bad times.

“Perfect. We should adopt it,” Brooks Koepka said. “I'd love to see how many bad times guys get. I think you'll see some urgency to play.”

Although he didn’t know the details of the new European pace of play policy, McIlroy did offer a solution for slow play when he pointed out that pace of play won’t be an issue at this week’s 30-man Tour Championship.

“Seriously, it's like traffic, right? You get 156 in the field, and it's hard to get those guys around quickly. Even last week, 70, there was no mention of pace of play,” McIlroy said. “I'm in a privileged position that I can say that because I'm going to get into a field of 30 or 70. Obviously, guys that are not quite in my position would disagree with that. [But] if you want to speed up play, cut the field sizes.”