Why are so many good golfers playing the John Deere Classic?

Jordan Spieth has fond recollections from time spent in Silvis, Ill.

After all, his first PGA Tour win got here at the John Deere Classic in 2013, when he holed a bunker shot to power a playoff and, when he received that playoff, turn into the PGA Tour’s first teenage champ since 1931. He ran it again two years later, too, successful the 2015 version in one other playoff.

But he hasn’t been again since.

Until this 12 months, that’s.

On paper it is a powerful spot on the calendar for the John Deere Classic. We’re nonetheless only a week faraway from a Memorial-U.S. Open-Travelers Championship Signature Event sandwich. The Genesis Scottish Open is subsequent week, serving as a UK tuneup for the Open Championship the week after that. Top golfers don’t prefer to play each occasion, which implies final week’s Rocket Mortgage Classic and this week’s John Deere Classic turned apparent skips.

So why, then, are high gamers displaying up in the Quad Cities? The reply is an intriguing look into the results of the PGA Tour’s new schedule and the incentives and rewards that include it.

Spieth is that this 12 months’s headliner, however he’s hardly the solely proficient participant. Patrick Cantlay was the highest-ranked Deere competitor till he withdrew with an harm earlier this week; even with out him the subject nonetheless consists of World No. 24 Sepp Straka, World No. 28 Jason Day, World No. 29 Sungjae Im, World No. 34 Denny McCarthy and different execs in kind like Maverick McNealy, Aaron Rai, and Mark Hubbard.

I get it: that listing isn’t precisely knocking your socks off with star energy. And it’s value including the standard caveat that the PGA Tour continues to be lacking star energy in the type of LIV defectors. But nonetheless, even with a pair late WDs there are 15 gamers from final 12 months’s FedEx Cup high 50 on this Deere subject. A 12 months in the past there have been simply 10 of these gamers. There’s additionally an uptick in execs from the high 125 from final 12 months to this 12 months.

And while you examine this 12 months’s subject to 2022 the distinction is much more stark: there wasn’t a single top-50 participant in the world in that subject. (World No. 58 Webb Simpson was the 10-1 betting favourite adopted by No. 80 Adam Hadwin.) This 12 months there are seven.

That’s counterintuitive and attention-grabbing.

The standard knowledge round the Signature Event construction — through which the high 50 gamers from the 2023 season can be exempt, plus further in-form gamers from the 2024 season, to eight limited-field, big-money occasions — was that the greater occasions would get stronger whereas the lesser occasions would get weaker. That has been true with the eight Signature Events, which have averaged 48 of the high 49 eligible gamers displaying up (the fiftieth, Tyrrell Hatton, was eliminated after the Sentry, when he joined LIV). But the inverse impact has not proven up in the remainder of the PGA Tour’s schedule; the “full-field events” have really gotten stronger, too. Measured by participation of top-50 and top-125 gamers from final 12 months’s FedEx Cup standings, this 12 months’s full-field occasions are 29 p.c stronger vs. the identical occasions in 2023.

Back to the unique query, then: Why?

That’s not a knock on the Deere, which boasts the second-longest title sponsorship on Tour, raised greater than $14 million for charity final 12 months and has a few of the most enjoyable tee markers in golf. Tuesday evening marked the “Big Dig,” the place Spieth stated his caddie Michael Greller’s youngsters had been “out driving tractors around.” He stated he’d had the occasion on his radar since the spring, and there’s loads of interesting stuff about this Quad Cities.

But tee markers and tractors apart, three elements appear almost definitely.

No. 1 is the offseason, which was made extra official with final 12 months’s fall swing getting separated from the remainder of the season, which allowed gamers to relaxation up quite than including occasions right here and there to maintain up their FedEx Cup rank. The FedEx Cup season used to go from one September to the following August; now it’s simply January by way of August. That makes an enormous distinction and gamers are prepared to play a extra packed schedule throughout that condensed time interval.

No. 2 is the urgency of the top-50 listing at the finish of the 12 months. Those who aren’t in that top-50 exemption class desperately wish to get there and people who have it this 12 months desperately wish to maintain it. Take just a few of this 12 months’s top-50 exemptees taking part this week: Denny McCarthy is No. 43 in the present FedEx Cup rating and Patrick Rodgers is No. 49 and Eric Cole is No. 55 and Jordan Spieth is No. 59 and Seamus Power is No. 64 and Adam Schenk is No. 67 and Andrew Putnam is No. 72; all of the above are signed up this week. Sure, there’s a powerful incentive to play the Signature Events, the place the cash is larger and the factors are greater. But if gamers don’t carry out properly in these, there’s incentive to play these full-field occasions, too, as a result of they’ll maintain accruing further factors in an effort to get into these greater occasions for subsequent 12 months.

No. 3 is the urgency of the remainder of the high 125 to squeeze their manner into the high 70, the new cutoff for the FedEx Cup Playoffs. It was once that, when you had been outdoors the Tour Championship’s high 30, there wasn’t a ton of distinction between No. 31 and No. 125; everyone saved his card and will play most occasions the following season. That’s not the case any longer. Many of these gamers in the 51-70 and 71-125 classes haven’t been eligible for Signature Events this season; mix that with a shortened season and their playing schedules are all however predetermined. Gone are the days of each PGA Tour participant selecting his schedule at free will. If you’re not in the high 50 you’re playing each probability you may get.

There are nonetheless particulars to kind by way of. Is this the incentive construction the Tour needs? Are lower-ranked execs, Korn Ferry Tour graduates and high school gamers getting sufficient playing alternatives? Should Signature Event fields get expanded? Should there be additional differentiation between a full-field occasion and a Signature Event? But if it seems like issues are getting extra cutthroat, properly, that’s most likely the level.

In sum, what this implies is that somebody like Scottie Scheffler (No. 1 in the FedEx Cup) or Xander Schauffele (No. 2) can choose his personal schedule. Play properly sufficient to ensure a berth in subsequent 12 months’s high 50? Feel free to select and select your occasions. That’s a perk to associate with the $20 mil purses: weeks off.

But for many different execs it’s pedal to the medal time. Including this week there are simply three “full-field” occasions left, the 3M Open and the Wyndham Championship being the others. The Genesis Scottish Open has restricted entry, as does the Open Championship. The ISCO and Barracuda Championships are opposite-field occasions with diminished factors.

At the starting of the 12 months the Tour projected roughly 18 gamers from outdoors the high 50 would transfer inside that juicy cutline from 12 months to 12 months. They projected roughly 31 new gamers shifting into the high 125. So far, regardless of some further begins from high execs, these numbers try. You can play extra, however in the event you don’t play higher it doesn’t a lot matter. So there’s some urgency in the air this week in Silvis, Illinois.

Welcome to the John Deere.

Dylan Dethier

Golf.com Editor

Dylan Dethier is a senior author for GOLF Magazine/GOLF.com. The Williamstown, Mass. native joined GOLF in 2017 after two years scuffling on the mini-tours. Dethier is a graduate of Williams College, the place he majored in English, and he’s the writer of 18 in America, which particulars the 12 months he spent as an 18-year-old dwelling from his automobile and playing a spherical of golf in each state.