Higher scores are goal for seniors at this week’s Mitsubishi Electric Classic

The leaderboard will have a different look this week when the Mitsubishi Electric Classic makes its annual stop at TPC Sugarloaf in Duluth. The names will be familiar, but the numbers beside them won’t mean the same thing.

That’s because tournament organizers and the PGA Tour Champions opted to switch to the Modified Stableford scoring system. So instead of counting strokes, the traditional way golf tournaments like the Masters does, the seniors will be trying to accumulate points.

For this week, positive numbers are good and negative numbers are bad.

The Mitsubishi Electric Classic will be the only tournament among all PGA Tour platforms to use the Modified Stableford scoring system this year. The change is expected to help the event stand out on the schedule.

“There’s just this little bit more diversification between risk and reward,” said tournament host Stewart Cink, the 2025 Charles Schwab Cup champion and the top-ranked player on PGA Tour Champions. “It places higher value on taking risk and, in golf, that’s exciting for the players to play and for the fans to watch.”

Under the Modified Stableford system, players get zero points for making par but receive two points for a birdie, five points for an eagle and eight points for a double eagle. They receive minus-one point for a bogey and minus-three points for a double bogey or worse.

The idea is to create more aggressive play, with golfers encouraged to take more risks in exchange for more reward.

Sugarloaf’s par-5 18th hole should get plenty of attention, particularly in the last round, when players might be tempted to challenge the water in front of the green to steal an eagle and make a bigger jump up the scoreboard.

On a recent visit to Sugarloaf, Cink stood in the fairway, about 200 yards away from the 18th green, and discussed the new scoring option.

“You have a chance to go for the green in two and bring eagle into play,” Cink said. “Last year we even saw a double eagle here. That would be an eight-pointer. That’s a pretty big jump. But there’s a pond down there, too, and players are going to know an eagle is five points and a bogey is only minus-one, so it’s a huge discrepancy.”

Last year the tournament was won by Jerry Kelly, who shot 20-under par, one stroke better than Ernie Els. Under the new format, the outcome would have been the same: Kelly would have accumulated 42 points for his 22 birdies and two bogeys, with Els getting 40 points for making 18 birdies, one eagle and one bogey.

“It’s impossible to just run away and hide,” Cink said. “In stroke play, if you get ahead by five shots with five holes to play, you can par the rest of the holes and play conservatively and win, even if someone goes crazy. With this format you cannot do that, because every birdie is worth two and every eagle is worth five. There’s just too much volatility to play safe.”