Brian Rolapp, the CEO of the PGA Tour, met with the media, tournament directors, and invited guests at PGA Tour HQ in Ponte Vedra ahead of The Players Championship to explain where the organization is headed in the future.
The big question on everyone’s mind is whether the PGA Tour schedule will be changed significantly. And an even bigger question: What will the Tour look like going forward?
The short answer is there will probably be several changes, but not right away. A few things might come about next year, but they are really looking at 2028 as the year to make bigger changes. So, all those who are worried about a new PGA Tour, take a breath and relax. Your favorite tournament has time to negotiate for what it wants.
The decisions will come from the Competition Committee. Once that happens, changes will be implemented through what Rolapp called a rolling approach.
“As Tiger has said recently, some elements could be addressed sooner for next season, with more significant change likely to be implemented for the 2028 season,” Rolapp explained.
The ideas currently being discussed by the Competition Committee, headed by Tiger Woods and including Patrick Cantlay, Maverick McNealy, Keith Mitchell, Adam Scott, and Camilo Villegas, include these topics:
Signature Events: They don’t want to get rid of the Signature Events. They want to double the number. That would be 16. With the current four majors and The Players, that’s 21 big events. Currently, most top players participate in between 15 and 19 PGA Tour events, which is why it seems like the top players aren’t playing each other as often, which is what fans want.
Having 21-28 big events: Keeping in mind the doubling of Signature Events, they are looking at a schedule of between 21 and 28 tournaments. But they want to open up what Rolapp called a “second track of PGA Tour tournaments, which will ladder up to those elevated events.” He did not have an example of how that would work.
One could guess that a certain result in the second track events would enable a player to leap up into the Signature events just as they can now with the Aon Swing 5.
They want to eliminate no-cut events. Yes! No coasting!
They want all big events to have at least 120 players. The reason is to increase the competition in each one.
“Our competitive model will be built around elevating those who prove themselves to be the top performers inside the ropes,” Rolapp explained.
They think these changes will have the best players playing each other more often, keeping in mind that players are not required to play in each tournament. Currently, a PGA Tour player is required to play 15 events each season, and that can include The Players, the Masters, the PGA, the U.S. Open and the British Open. Those five plus the proposed 16 Signature Events would be 21 events, if a player participated in all of them.
“The committee's focus has been on the competitive model built on meritocracy. This is not a closed shop,” Rolapp said at his press conference.
They apparently want to keep the point system, FedEx points or something similar, but they want it simplified.
Expanded locations: They want the PGA Tour to be in some major markets where they don’t currently have tournaments. This includes cities like New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Washington D.C., Boston, and other cities that were not named. Rolapp believes those areas have a strong demand for a golf event.
Change is coming at the beginning and the end: These are some areas where there could be change, but again, there is nothing written in stone on these topics.
In terms of timing, they would like to begin the season in late January, which everyone knows is to avoid conflicts with football. They want to start with a spectacular event on the west coast that could be broadcast in prime time on the east coast and in the Midwest.
You could guess Pebble Beach might be a site, because it is spectacular. But it might be San Diego, and it might be Riviera CC, three well-known and storied courses that currently host PGA Tour events. This assumes no El Nino or La Nina problems, which was one reason the Sentry moved to Hawaii. As far as that goes, Hawaii fits the criteria.
PGA Tour Playoffs: The Committee wants to find ways to enhance the postseason, including the potential integration of match play and the introduction of win-or-go-home moments.
“We have heard from our fans and our partners,” Rolapp said. “They want more drama.”
What they really want is drama with people who are the biggest names. They believe that a win-or-go-home format will result in a Tiger vs. Phil or Rory vs Scottie type matchup. They aren’t anticipating reality, which in the past has also been Andrew Magee vs. Jeff Maggert and Kevin Sutherland vs. Scott McCarron, and was never the Tiger vs. Phil duel. But the idea of a must finish top 10 or top 20 or top 50 to advance, as they do now, would cause sweaty palms.
Rolapp expects to make some announcements in June, perhaps around the 22nd, at The Travelers, which is after the next PGA Tour board meeting.
Scarcity: In his first press conference, Rolapp mentioned scarcity, and everyone there suddenly looked like the proverbial herd of cats with a room full of rocking chairs. But his view is different.
“Scarcity is not about the number of events we have, but rather scarcity is about making every event we have matter,” Rolapp said. “What we envision is a merit-based system that leans into what makes professional golf so compelling, players earning their way to the top, with every event having greater meaning.”
The trick is going to be figuring out how to make every event extra special, because as the saying goes, when everything is important, then nothing is really important. So, there will have to be some intangibles along the way to attract both players and fans to each tournament. We all await the post- Hartford announcements.