PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – On Wednesday morning, still-green PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp, laid out six “themes” where Turi is headed. He did it in a room surrounded by roughly 1,100 people, many on the Tour payroll, but many others on the payroll of players, golf media, major corporations, etc.
These topics, and countless others, have played out in dozens of meetings over the past six months. Many of those meetings involved Tiger Woods and Future Competition Committeethe PGA Tour’s newest investors in the Sports Strategic Groupand a handful of board members whose job it is to determine the future.
Rolapp’s press conference may have been short on concrete specifics, but that’s because the minutia is still being ironed out. At least in theory, it constituted an important (if vague) line in the sand, telling the world what to expect. I’m here to tell you a little more about what the details really mean.
Topic no. 1: An abbreviated program
The upcoming PGA Tour schedule will feature anywhere between 21 and 26 events from late January through September. (In general, he’d like to avoid September if possible, and would pull in that direction only from the traditional Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup dates.) Twenty-one through the 26th is roughly 12 to 15 fewer events than the Tour now has.
Why is less better? Which sports league is contracting its schedule?
The answer is about creating a lack of events and trying to pack in more IN those events. In modern PGA Tour terms, that means more guarantees that 100 of the tour’s top 100 show up in the weeks you tell them to show up. The tournament won’t be able to do this across the board, but it should try as hard as possible to do so. This is how you create a predictable and sellable product in the TV market.
The reason why Rolapp is saying “21 to 26” is because it is not fully finalized yet. The schedule will absolutely include all four championships, players, playoff events and year-end team competitions. But a tough trade mentality may demand 21. A player-focused approach probably leans towards the flexibility of 26. This will be traded over the next few months. But here’s the bottom line:
With purses worth $20 million (or more!). all of them from these events, the pros on this tour will thrive financially.
Topic no. 2: 120 player event, WITH cutoff
One hundred and twenty. That’s the size of the fields in this upcoming tournament, which should be considered a big win for players who haven’t played in Signature Events in recent years. Those who have finished 51st through 100th in the FedEx have not been able to crack the bigger events. Now they will, which should make their schedule-building efforts much easier.
But just because the courses will be bigger doesn’t mean it will be a cakewalk, because all those events must have 36-hole cuts. A long-standing staple of professional golf at the highest level is for players to hit their clubs on Friday night and walk off the course because their game hasn’t been up to standard. This helps make Friday interesting again, which has to feel like a win for broadcasters.
Topic no. 3. A splashy start in the WEST
The next seasons will officially start at the end of January and will start somewhere on the west coast. You might think, Isn’t that already the case?
Yes, but the Tour has come up with an exit plan from Hawaii, a beautiful island where it costs a lot of money to host a tour. Instead, the Tour is more likely to start in San Diego at Torrey Pines — aligning with the week before the Super Bowl — or at the WM Phoenix Open, which is often played the week of the Super Bowl.
The legendary Pebble Beach track is likely to become the tournament’s strong starting line, but each passing week brings better chances for sunny skies in Monterey. It might be better to be third in line. More than anything, the start of the tournament will be in primetime, again attracting broadcasters.
Topic no. 4: A return to major metros
Rolapp hit a number of major cities during his press conference Wednesday: Chicago, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, D.C.
All of them cities that the Tour does not visit every year. This is about to change. This does not mean that the smaller communities that host tournament events will now be forgotten. She just means it the biggest events will end up going to some of the biggest markets in the country.
More people means more ticket revenue, which provides a better environment to enhance the tour’s history-defining moments. Optically, this matters to the Tour’s marketability far more than its history of bringing some big-name players to Silvis, Ill.
Memphis and Maryland are unlikely to host playoff events like they did last year. Chicago and New York? Much more likely.
Topic no. 5: Promotion and discount
This is the compelling juice of the future of the tournament. It will take a cleaner, more rigid form two levels with two different schedules. Rolapp used the word “trace”, but “levels” will also suffice. The top tier will play those 21 to 26 events mentioned above. The other division will play its season in search of promotion to that top level.
European soccer fans understand this much better than American soccer fans. Promotion and relegation is the essence of fun that inspires even the worst franchises to yearn for wins (and securing a spot) even in their worst seasons. Because the threat of relegation means they will have to work hard to get promoted again.
What will it look like in reality? Perhaps a low 20 to 25% of those top 120 players get relegated and a similar number promoted from the second tier. For example, Max Homa’s 2025 saw him finish 111th in the final FedEx Cup standings, his worst finish in seven years, brought on by some of his worst golf in seven years. Simply put, this level of golf will not be rewarded by the new system and would cause Homa to be relegated.
For those unfamiliar with the concept, seduction is in the battle to stand or rise. FedEx Cup No. 87-90 playing the most nervous golf of their season in August, aware that numbers 91-100 could replace them with a good week. Of course, the Tour uses promotion now, just a much milder version of relegation. This future is likely to be much more rigid.
But here’s an important element: a secondary with a properly defined schedule and a universal promotion goal would create a very predictable schedule. It will also likely include higher bags than those currently offered by the Korn Ferry Tour AND PD world tour. This isn’t just baseball.
Topic no. 6: Postseason drama
The tournament has never quite figured out its postseason, and he knows it. Evidence: the endless format change and multiple iterations of the FedEx Cup Playoffs over the past decade alone.
Considering the Tour also doesn’t own any of golf’s five biggest entities (the majors and the Ryder Cup), it will try to create the most entertaining playoffs imaginable. If that means a bit of a surprise – as a game to end a season full of blowouts, Rolapp made it clear it’s very much on the table. Luckily for him, we’ve already made a video about it. See below.
