What will the ‘new’ PGA Tour look like?
It’s a question golf fans have been asking for several years, three or four or more, since the arrival of LIV threw the entire pro-golf ecosystem into chaos. We got an answer when the Tour introduced its new limited-field, big-money Signature Event model for the 2023 season; that model has evolved every year since. But the arrival of new chief executive Brian Rolapp this summer put everyone on notice that a bigger and more fundamental change is coming. He appointed Tiger Woods to preside Future Races Committee and he didn’t mince words in describing what was to come:
“The goal is not incremental change,” Rolapp said in August. “The goal is an important change.”
So what will it look like? We will see. And we will ask for data. And we got one on Wednesday, when Harris English – the top-ranked player at this week’s RSM Classic, the final event of the 2025 Tour season – teased a version of what the “significant change” could mean.
“We’ve got some smart guys at the helm. Now with Brian Rolapp coming in, he’s looking at the PGA Tour in a different light,” English said. That’s a near-unanimous sentiment about Rolapp, whom everyone on the PGA Tour describes as “impressive.” (Maybe it’s because they all love football, and because Rolapp’s former employer, the NFL, is such a behemoth. That’s the subtext: if Rolapp’s leadership was good enough for them, it’s good enough for the Tour.)
But here’s where things got interesting:
“Sometimes change is good,” English said. “I understand they want all the best players to play together more often, and the talk of the tournament possibly starting after the Super Bowl I think is a pretty good thing because we can’t really compete with football. So we’ll see where it goes.”
Starting after the Super Bowl! That would be news indeed. Sources familiar with Tour discussions have suggested that nothing is set in stone, but it is clear that the structure of the season is on the table. English’s proposed schedule includes a red flag – the WM Phoenix Open traditionally takes place the same week as the Big Game and is the most watched event on Tour; surely they would not move that? But his biggest point stands. The Tour has done its best to avoid the NFL schedule to avoid competing on Sundays. It seems logical that the NFL offseason would be tournament season.
So what would that season look like? English suggested that the Signature-Event model could get another massive overhaul — or face elimination altogether.
“I think that’s what they’re going to change down the road, maybe in 2027, is to make all the tournaments equal and not have the eight elevated events and the regular events. They’re going to have 20, 22 events that are all the same,” he said. “I think that’s a good model to have. This is where you’re going to see all the top players play in every single event because you can’t really afford to drop one.”
English’s suggestion would solve what is perhaps the Tour’s biggest branding problem: it’s currently difficult to tell the difference between a Signature Event and a normal full-field event when both are considered PGA Tour events. If there were fewer events, it would be easier to determine significance.
However, English wanted to make one thing clear: He’s grateful to be playing with it all.
“As for set up events, like, I love them – even if they weren’t set up, I’d probably play them all. I’ve been playing them for a long time,” he said. “Really, Pebble is the only one I haven’t played for a good while in my career, right where it fell on the schedule. I like playing on the West Coast. I like to start that early, play a lot of events there and get your season off to a good start. We’ll see where it goes. I think they’ll go more where the 20 points are the same, all the money.”
Tour’s tea leaves have been difficult to read with perfect clarity. Even as Rolapp talks about the absence, his Tour has added two new fall events for the coming years with new premises and new sponsors. There are open questions about Hawaii’s future as part of the plan; English expressed his regret that the Tour won’t be going to Kapalua this year, where they usually start the calendar season, and he would be upset to see the move to Hawaii go away or miss out on other venues like Torrey Pines or even the fall events. Cut tours may sound like a logical move on paper. That doesn’t mean it comes without consequences.
“Tournaments like this, I don’t want to see them go away because I know how important they are to this community. A lot of these fall events, we go to a lot of places in the country that don’t get a lot of golf tournaments and you can tap into a different fan base. I don’t want to see them go away, but I think they’ll find a time and a place.”
The Englishman, 36, is used to the hustle and bustle of the tournament. While some things have remained the same – this is his 14th time playing RSM – much else has not. He has seen points, payments, schedules, structures and rewards change and change and change again. His message here was again clear: Wherever they tell me I can play, I will play. And the change can be for the better.
“When you look at the other leagues, they’re all super competitive and what you did two or three years ago means nothing today,” he said. “The NFL cuts guys all the time. We’re pretty weird here, but if it makes our product better and more fans watch it and more fans are coming here to tournaments, then I’m all for it.”
“>
