Another PGA Tour season is underway, with the typical bright sunshine and warm terrain as backdrop to various venues along the West Coast giving hope that the snow shovels and ice picks that are part of the arsenal for a good bit of the country can soon be replaced by tools from a golf bag.
Missing was the annual stop at Kapalua on Maui, and while it was presented as a one-off occurrence due to water issues at the resort, it provided an ominous backdrop to what the PGA Tour might entail.
A future schedule could see some favorite events in peril.
The PGA Tour’s new CEO Brian Rolapp – former media rights czar at the NFL – has a mandate for “scarcity” while also trying to establish a more competitive model for the 20-year-old FedExCup competition that continues to evolve.
That “less is more” mantra that Rolapp and others are leaning into is viewed a way to strengthen the product for the television and media rights holders.
“The talk of the Tour potentially starting after the Super Bowl I think is a pretty good thing because we can’t really compete with football,” said PGA Tour veteran Harris English late in 2025 in comments that were all but endorsed by Rolapp.
After the Super Bowl? English added that some conjecture centered around reducing the actual number of events (excluding the majors) to 22.
There are clearly benefits to the plan for the PGA Tour’s competitive model. There has long been a view that the season is too long, that fans don’t have a chance to miss it, that too many fields are watered down.
But… think about a reduced schedule that would see 26 events including the four majors. That is eight fewer weeks than the current FedExCup schedule of 34 from early January through the Tour Championship in August. (The fall schedule is expected to remain largely the same as a way for players to earn status.)
Starting after the Super Bowl (the WM Phoenix Open has always worked well that week) would mean both Hawaii events, the American Express Championship in Palm Springs and the Farmers Insurance event at Torrey Pines would be in jeopardy, or at least need to be moved.
Four more would need to go, and the idea of having off weeks following the major championships has been floated. Which seems a perfect idea – if you want to give LIV Golf some oxygen.
“We’ve torn down and looked at so many different models,” said Tiger Woods, who Rolapp appointed to the Future Competitions Committee. “It’s been a lot. We’ve talked to title sponsors, we talked to CMOs, we talked to tournament directors, we talked to media partners, we’ve talked to a lot of different people and taken a lot in of what they would like to see.”
Golf Channel reported that several players had been presented scenarios that would see a push for bigger markets.
For example, it suggested the John Deere Classic moving to Chicago – which doesn’t square with the idea that the company’s headquarters are in Moline, and its sponsorship is centered on the community where the event has existed for decades.
The report also put forward the idea of moving some of the FedExCup playo events – including the BMW Championship – to the West Coast. While the Western Golf Association-backed BMW has been moving around the country, it has yet-to-be-confirmed plans to play in the Chicago area in upcoming years along with a pending extension of BMW’s sponsorship.
Those talks don’t occur without the PGA Tour signing off, which suggests numerous moving parts.
“The scarcity thing is something that I know scares a lot of people, but I think that if you have scarcity at a certain level, it will be better because it will drive more eyes because there will be less time,” Woods said. “But don’t forget the golfing year is long. So, there’s other opportunities and other places around the world or other places to play that can be created and have events.”
That suggests the Tour might be willing to co-sanction some events around the world, but how that fits into the overall schedule is unclear.
And so here we are, with a lot of questions about how the PGA Tour will look in the future. Private equity money has come into the sport via the Strategic Sports Group, which expects a return on its $1.5 billion investment. Player equity shares totaling more than $900 million are also part of the new for-profit enterprise.
Getting that kind of money back is going to require some changes. And some will be jarring.
Bob Harig covers golf for Sports Illustrated. He is the author of three books, including “Tiger V. Jack: Golf’s Great Debate,” which is available now for pre-order and is tied to the 40th anniversary of Jack Nicklaus’ 1986 Masters triumph.
