Trevor Immelman Q&A: What to watch at Tour Championship, the big chair at CBS and Ryder Cup storylines

“You look at the top of the leaderboard, let’s just read out the four names here to start: Scheffler, Hovland, McIlroy and Rahm. Come on. These are players that are just so high quality, and this golf course can be a really tough test if we get the right weather. Early forecast is no rain, so that’s what I’m hoping for. I’d like to see the greens as firm as possible. To me, with the current state of the game as far as these players hit the ball and with how good they are, firm greens is really the only way to slow them down. That’s going to be the thing that I’m paying attention to leading into the weekend.

“The main storyline is who’s gonna win this thing? I still do believe that everybody has a shot. I still feel like all 30 have got a chance because I think back to McIlroy last year and how he started not in the lead and triple bogeyed his first hole and still ended up winning the tournament and FedEx Cup. I absolutely think the caliber of these golfers, they’ve all had amazing seasons. When any PGA Tour player starts the season, and they think about their goals, making the Tour Championship is the first thing you write down. For these guys to get to this point, it’s a big deal. They’ve played unbelievable golf all season. You look at some of these names that are just sitting at even par, so they’re gonna start 10 shots back, you’ve got Jordan Spieth, Tyrrell Hatton, Emiliano Grillo, Sam Burns. Burns threw a 62 at it Saturday, who’s to say that he’s not gonna start with something like that on Thursday and be right in the thick of things?

“Is the staggered start a little awkward and unusual? It absolutely is. Golf fans are probably becoming more accustomed to it now, but I only think it’s a little awkward for the first day because you got one guy starting at 10 and then you got a few guys starting at even but once you get to Thursday night, it really all starts to make sense because you can very comfortably see where everybody stands.

“I mean, I’ve got to be honest with you, we’ve had a small army of people behind the scenes helping us over the last two weeks to keep track of the movement and who’s going to be in and who’s going to be out,” he said with a laugh. “It was very challenging for us to keep up with all of that and then communicate it in an understandable way to the viewers. But now, that’s all over and it’s just going to be right in front of you. I think it’s probably the best system that I can think of right now.”

So you like the staggered start format, the starting strokes?

“I just don’t think there’s a better way to do it.”