The PGA Tour playoffs may finally be saved.
Tour CEO Brian Rolapp mentioned the possibility of a change back in March at The Players Championship, but we now have confirmation that match play is coming to the Tour Championship along with exciting news about potential new venues.
We have written what a match might look like in the tournament playoffs and that speculation will have to continue. While Rolapp and the PGA Tour confirmed that match play would be introduced in the 2028 postseason, we still have no idea what the format will be.
The announcement teased even more surprising news. East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta will no longer host the tournament championship annually beginning in 2028, ending a partnership that spanned more than 20 years. Instead, the Tour plans to switch courses for the season-ending event including “prestigious courses” the Tour has never visited before.
Rolapp plans to reveal more information in August during this season’s playoffs.
The Tour Championship will look completely different
There have been some great moments at East Lake for the Championship Tour throughout the years. Tiger Woods taking home the trophy in 2018 for his first win in more than five years is one of the most iconic golf moments of this century, with thousands of fans lining up behind him in an unlikely comeback.
But starting in 2028, I don’t think you’ll see any scenes like that.
Based on the press release and some of the quotes we’ve seen since Rolapp spoke before the Travelers Championship, the Tour may be moving to a more made-for-TV format for the Tour Championship.
This can have its benefits.
A lot of people, myself included, aren’t the biggest fans of the tournament schedule, especially when we go through Florida every season. The courses are quite uninspiring. But much of that can be attributed to courses not wanting to give up their practice time during prime weeks in the spring and summer when their members want to play.
A made-for-TV event would solve this problem. Without the need for infrastructure to support 100+ players and tens of thousands of fans, courses wouldn’t need to be closed for as long and also wouldn’t take as many hits.
This would be much more attractive to prestigious courses that have not been interested in hosting Tour events but have been willing to host much smaller events – for example, Seminole Golf Club, Pine Valley Golf Club and Cypress Point Club.
Seminole and Cypress Point were the two most recent hosts of the Walker Cup, the amateur version of the Ryder Cup.
What does made for TV mean?
These courses would be more likely to host this type of event because the made-for-TV style means tickets are likely to be limited. Instead of the 40,000 fans who come every day for four days, you can only see a few thousand lined up on the freeways.
This is an incentive for choosing courses. Part of the challenge of finding courses to host large events is that the courses already have the infrastructure to handle them. Places like Bandon Dunes, Cypress Point and Pine Valley simply don’t have the space or the surrounding infrastructure to handle 200,000 fans for a week. But limit that number to a maximum of 2,000 fans and suddenly it makes more sense.
And given the match play nature of the event, course length or difficulty does not factor into course selection. This further opens the door for the organization of classical courses.
Some people think that these exclusive, prestigious courses don’t want any publicity from hosting a tournament, but that’s not always the case. They just need it at the right scale.
So, you might ask, how bad would the atmosphere be in this hypothetical?
Maybe not bad at all. We could only see eight to 16 players showing up for this new event. With only a few matches out at a time, there should still be plenty of fans lining the fairways to watch every hole.
This new format would be a much more intimate setting. The tournament could even feature fans arriving, perhaps banning phones and ensuring the crowds are fit and in line, closer to the atmosphere we see at the Masters, though not to the same degree. The tour would ideally focus on the coverage and production of the event, an issue many of us at home have been complaining about for years.
What would be some dream courses for the Tour Championship rotation?
I’m glad you asked.
- Chambers Bay, Washington: Host of the 2015 US Open, the USGA struggled to give Chambers Bay the love it deserved. They missed the greens and it became too big a deal how the course and location couldn’t handle the infrastructure needs of a US Open. No problem for the new tournament championship, then. Chambers Bay is a phenomenal course with outstanding views and its layout is perfect for match golf, with some fun holes. The greens were groomed years ago.
- Pine Valley, New Jersey: Maybe a long shot, but Pine Valley is hosting the 2044 Walker Cup. One of the most mysterious courses in the US because of how private it has remained, Pine Valley would make incredible television and be the biggest beneficiary of limited fans.
- Cypress Point, California: It might be the most beautiful golf course on the planet. Cypress Point was one of the courses used in the rotation for the Pebble Beach Pro-Am until 1990.
- Sand Hills, Nebraska. This design by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw is one of the most incredible in the country. It would never work for a major tournament, but the views and golf for a small match event can be unmatched.
- Bandon Dunes, Oregon: Take your pick on which course at Bandon Dunes, though I’ll take Pacific Dunes for the views. Bandon Dunes recently hosted the US Amateur and would surely be a perfect choice for the new-look Tour Championship.
- Peachtree Golf Club, Georgia: The PGA Tour could have its own Augusta National. Located north of Atlanta, Peachtree was another Bobby Jones design as he sought to replicate the feel of Augusta National closer to Metro Atlanta. It has the same tall Georgia pines and is one of the toughest courses in the country.
- Sleepy Hollow, New York: One of the most interesting courses in the USA, Sleepy Hollow features the work of the legendary CB Macdonald with some of the wildest green complexes you will ever see. It would be a very entertaining match.
- Pete Dye Golf Club, West Virginia: This is a crazy course set in an active coal mine. We can’t see enough tournament golf in the mountains, and this Pete Dye design combines great looks with Dye’s classic risk-reward golf that’s perfect for match play.
- Pastime, California: One of the best public courses in the country, Pasatiempo is widely recognized but has only hosted USGA amateur events and college tournaments. It would be a very popular host with so many people having the pleasure of playing it over the years.
- Merion, Pennsylvania: Just tune into US Amateur this August to see why Merion would be a great choice. It’s the exact intimate setting I have in mind for this new format and would certainly challenge the world’s best in match play. However, it will host the US Open in 2030.
Where would you like to see the tournament championship played? Let me know in the comments.
