For years, the artist formerly known as the Honda Classic was one of the must-see stops on the PGA Tour. Kept in hard PGA NationalThe Honda Classic served as the opener for the PGA Tour’s Florida Swing and annually welcomed the game’s best. Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas, Adam Scott and Rickie Fowler are all past champions. Tiger Woods, Justin Rose, Sergio Garcia, Brooks Koepka and others have used it on several occasions.
In the mid-2010s, the Honda Classic, now called Classic Cognizant in Palm Beachesattracted top players, many of whom call Florida home, offering a chance to play a tough course for a bag that was in the same ballpark as stops at Pebble Beach, Riviera and Bay Hill. The Players Championship was held in May, which meant the Arnold Palmer Invitational wasn’t held until late March, and Honda had a good spot between Riviera and the WGC at Trump Doral. With purses in the $6 million range and players only playing select West Coast events, the Honda Classic held its own and was a popular tournament.
But times began to change in 2019 when The Players Championship was moved to March and the Arnold Palmer Invitational was placed between him and Honda. PGA National still commanded a good field until LIV Golf arrived and the Signature Event model was introduced in 2023. Suddenly, Cognizant found itself chasing two West Coast events with $20 million purses, and facing API ($20 million purse) and players ($25 million).
This change was removed from recognized in the mud. With the top players all pushing for her in the $20 million events, her field began to bleed and now she finds herself with an uncertain future as new PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp and the Futures Tournament Committee. led by Tiger Woodslook to reshape the PGA Tour schedule having “lack” in mind..
Cognizant’s tenuous place on the upcoming PGA Tour schedule was further highlighted on Monday when Ben Griffin, Adam Scott and Jacob Bridgeman, three of the top betting favorites, all withdrew from this week’s event. This week’s Cognizant will feature just one player in the world’s top 30 (Ryan Gerard) and just eight in the top 50. Brooks Koepka, Billy Horschel and Gary Woodland will be pushing it, but for the most part, the buzz has been lost from an event that once signaled the start of the Masters race.
“It’s bad,” Thomas said after last night’s TGL match of Cognizant’s weakest field. “It’s one of those events that just fell at an unfortunate time in the schedule. I think it’s a good thing and a bad thing about our schedule, how great it is and the amount of great golf courses we go to.
“It kills me that I can’t play Torrey Pines every year. Like Torrey Pines South, to me, it’s such a great golf course. It fits my eye very well. I like the North course, but I can’t play it every year. Or the Colonial is an event in the past where – I like the Colonial. I think the golf course is incredible to play in four or one.”
The Signature Event model has done its job, but it has also segmented the PGA Tour into a cluster of star-studded, limited-field events and full-field events that attract the occasional star but are primarily used as a way for players to play their way into the bigger events. That’s why Fowler played at Cognizant last year but isn’t doing it this year punching his ticket at all Signature Events. That is why Koepka, who is is not eligible for sponsor invitations to Signature Events this year, it’s on the ground this week. It’s also a home game for him.
World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler has played three tournaments in a row and four in five weeks. He’s taking the week off with two more March starts on deck. Several other big names have played three in a row and all have played in the last two weeks. With the Arnold Palmer Invitational and The Players on the horizon, choices must be made. Knowledge is on the other side of these decisions.
“It’s difficult with every tournament on the PGA TOUR schedule, outside of the Signature Events, for a number of reasons,” Horschel said at TGL. “We had this problem before the Signature Events happened. We’ve always had this problem. A decade ago, this event was incredible with this field, but where it fell on the schedule was really good for a lot of the guys that lived here. … This field has been kind of up and down the last couple of years. When you have so many events on the PGA Tour, people try to figure out where they go on their schedule and you. It’s hard to fill a field.
“It’s not just recognition. A whole bunch of tournaments are fighting.”
Rumors of a possible new PGA Tour schedule, which is expected to begin in 2027 with changes coming the following year, have surfaced in recent months. Woods said the FCC, which includes Patrick Cantlay, Adam Scott, Camilo Villegas, Maverick McNealy and Keith Mitchell, along with a number of business leaders, has considered multiple ideas to satisfy players, fans and sponsors. By all accounts, the goal for Rolapp, Woods and the FCC is to trim the schedule to 22-25 events, play in the biggest markets, start around the Super Bowl and wrap up before Labor Day. Own the summer, take a few weeks off, get all the best players to play, make the tournament the most competitive and avoid the game against the NFL calendar. Fewer cards, fewer starts, more noise. Limited, scarce, simple and competitive.
You get the point.
Those charged with shaping the future of the PGA Tour will ultimately decide the fate of tournaments like Cognizant. But as the PGA Tour continues to become a more tiered system, with the haves and have-nots more clearly defined, the writing may already be on the wall.
Less is more, and ultimately, there are only so many seats at the table.
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