You would be forgiven if Chris Gotterup wins the Sony Open it didn’t cross your desk in real time.
New PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp will understand. Depending on the setup of the TV, he may even have been in the same boat.
And that’s why he wants things to change. Because chances are Rolapp’s attention, like yours, wasn’t just on Gotterup after he shot a 64 Sunday to claim his third career PGA Tour title. It might not have been there at all.
Because just as Gotterup was putting his finishing touches season-opening winsomething else was calling—something 4,800 miles away Water Etiquette Club.
There, in the frigid cold of Chicago, was Bears second-year quarterback Caleb Williams, preparing to authorize the final moment of divine intervention in an improbable season. While Gotterup was intercepting and basking in the Hawaiian sun, Williams dodged Los Angeles Rams defenders and made a 40-yard prayer toward the Soldier Field end zone. Fifty-one yards later — just short of Gotterup’s final full swing of the inning — the ball landed in the hands of Cole Kmet, sending the game into overtime and the entire city of Chicago into a state of delirium.
Minutes later, Gotterup waxed emotional in an interview with Golf Channel about his journey from barely outside the top 200 in the world to a three-time PGA Tour winner.
You may have missed this too. Because the Bears won the toss, punted, and ultimately lost.
Of course, Rolapp understands all of this better than most. He knows you may not have seen all or any of Gotterup’s wins. There are countless things competing for our attention, pulling us in a number of different directions at once. Streaming services, text messages, emails, Slack notifications, push notifications, the list goes on. When the NFL is one of those things, Rolapp, who made his career as commissioner Roger Goodell No. 2 in the NFL, I know it’s hard to break away from the gravity of The Shield.
like does Tiger Woodswho, along with Rolapp, is responsible for shaping the future of the PGA Tour.
“That’s one of the reasons why we left the game in September and October and even early November when I was playing in my first Tour Championship,” Woods said on the Hero World Challenge, referring to the NFL. “There’s one thing with The Shield that’s there that’s impactful.”
Rolapp promised “significant change” when he took over and the PGA Tour schedule — both in volume and pace — seems to be at the top of the to-do list.
Rolapp is now at the helm of a for-profit entity, and his job is to deliver returns to investors in Strategic Sports Group and, ultimately, pay equity grants to players. To do that, Rolapp promised to look at the whole picture and make the necessary changes to improve the PGA Tour product and increase growth.
“Look, the business of sports is not that complicated,” Rolapp said. “You get the product right, you get the right partners, your fans will reward you with their time because they’re telling you it’s good and they want more of it, and then the commercial part and the business will take care of itself.”
or shortest PGA Tour schedule seems to be on the horizon. Harris English hinted at it during the RSM Classic.
Rolapp is interested in creating a league built on parity, scarcity and an easy-to-follow season leading into a postseason. The narratives will be easy to follow and the stakes clear.
If this sounds familiar, it should. The NFL has been something that Rory McIlroy and others have long pointed to as a role model to imitate professional golf.
“I think the great thing about football is that it’s always in demand,” McIlroy said in 2014. “People, after the Super Bowl is over, they can’t wait for football season to start again. That’s the great thing about it.”
Eleven years later, Woods echoed that point. The move from 38 events spread out with the majors in between to a shorter, more streamlined season should help increase appetite for professional golf, as it does for soccer. This is, at least, a sound logic.
“The shortage thing is something that I know scares a lot of people,” Woods said, “but I think if you have a shortage at a certain level, it’s going to be better because it’s going to get more eyeballs because there’s going to be less time.”
Emulating a part of the NFL is one thing, but not competing directly with it for the finite source of “attention” is arguably a bigger driver behind the rumored schedule change.
The NFL has trumped professional golf for years. The season used to be 11 months. It was then shortened to end in September. The PGA Tour then made changes to ensure the FedEx Cup Playoffs were completed before the pigskin hit the air in September. Now, Rolapp, Woods and the “Future Competition Committee” appear headed for a post-Super Bowl start to the PGA Tour season.
“Anybody who’s in the sports business, their overall competition is for sports fans’ mindshare and their time,” Rolapp said. “(Sports leagues want to draw attention) to a complicated world that is increasingly disrupted by technology, where you have a million things to do with your time, a million alternatives.”
There is an argument to be made that golf should not tail off and run away from football. Golf is a global game, and while America may be obsessed with the NFL, the rest of the world is not. That’s all true, but Rolapp left a league commanding eyeballs and is now leading a league trying to find more. America is where those eyeballs and TV deals reside.
“I don’t root for the teams, I root for the TV ratings. So whoever’s behind, I’ll root for them. How’s that?” Rolapp said of his rooting interests in the tournament championship.
At his old job, Rolapp would have been doing cartwheels while Williams found Kmet. In his new wonder, the last miracle of the Bears was likely just another proof of what he already knew.
A PGA Tour schedule change is coming — potentially in 2027 — and don’t be surprised when it happens.
Just remember that Williams launched a prayer into Chicago’s night — because on Sunday, that’s what almost everyone, almost certainly including Rolapp, was watching.
