Harris English unwittingly caused a bit of a stir last week at the PGA Tour’s season-ending fall event when he was discussing some of the ideas being kicked around about the future schedule.
New CEO Brian Rolapp has made it clear that change is coming, some of it possibly significant, including his desire for “scarcity” and his comments at the Tour Championship about more meaningful events.
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English, 36, a five-time PGA Tour winner who played on the U.S. Ryder Cup team this year, has obviously had conversations behind the scenes, and there have undoubtedly been scenarios bandied about.
But when English suggested that the PGA Tour, starting in 2027, might not start its season until after the Super Bowl … well, whoa.
“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,” English said.
He added: “I get that they want all the best players playing together more often, and I think that’s what they’re going to change down the road maybe in 2027 is have all the tournaments be equal and not have the eight elevated events and the regular events. They’ll have 20, 22 events that are all the same. I think that’s a good model to have. That’s where you’ll see all the top players play every single event because you can’t really afford to take one off.”
Wow, that’s a lot to unpack. So let’s try.
> When English said 20 to 22 events, he was not including the major championships. So, say the Tour goes to 22 events, the majors making it 26. This year’s FedEx Cup season schedule from January through the Tour Championship had 34 weeks. Where would those eight events to cut come from?
First reaction: That’s far too many events to cut out of the schedule, especially when you consider the Tour has sponsorship deals for several more years.
> Starting after the Super Bowl? The 2026 game is Feb. 8, the day of the final round of the WM Phoenix Open. Starting afterward would mean the Tour forgoing the Sentry (canceled for 2026 due to course conditions), the Sony, American Express, Farmers Insurance Open and the WM Phoenix Open. That would knock five tournaments out, but not all of them seem likely to go away.
There is concern that the Hawaii events are in danger, that Sentry might move its sponsorship somewhere else. The Sony deal is up after the 2026 tournament. But American Express is on board through 2028 and while Farmers’s sponsorship is done after 2026, it is difficult to see the Tour abandoning an iconic course and a longtime market like Torrey Pines. Also, the WM Phoenix Open has always worked perfectly during Super Bowl week and is not impacted by the game.
First reaction: If looking to cut and Hawaii is deemed expendable—still a big if—the Tour can start the season the week of the Amex, which is the same weekend as the NFL championship games on Sunday. Have it be the season-opening event which starts on Wednesday and ends on Saturday. No NFL conflict. Torrey Pines follows on an off week for the NFL and then Phoenix the week of the Super Bowl. This scenario, however, only reduces the schedule by two events.
Could a future PGA Tour season begin at the American Express? / Abe Arredondo-Imagn Images
> The idea that 20 to 22 events would be all the same. So does that mean eliminating signature events or making them all signature events?
First reaction: This appears problematic. The Tour has a difficult time supporting what is supposed to be nine signature events with their $20 million purses. A few events have received discounts which means the Tour makes up the difference. In a for-profit world, that is not ideal. It wants to maximize sponsorship revenue, not make up for it. And yet, it’s difficult to see the Tour abandoning signature events altogether. It has set up a system where players can earn their way into those big events by playing regular events, which still are the backbone of the Tour. And would there be other opportunities for players not part of the signature events?
The Tour is already shrinking in 2026, with only 100 players fully exempt through Sunday’s season-ending event at the RSM Classic. Many field sizes will be smaller, including events such as the WM Phoenix Open which will only have 120 players, same for the Players Championship. The events that had 156 players will go down to 144 and those that were 144 will only be 132.
Rolapp—and like the Strategic Sports Group investors—are striving for a more competitive, streamlined model that sees the events mean more and the top players competing in them. If there are fewer events, that means a higher percentage of top players in the tournaments.
Getting to that point, however, is not easy. Cutting eight events out would all but require off weeks during the regular season or scaling back at the end of the season. Perhaps one or two off weeks is possible but it doesn’t seem likely it would be more than that. And unless the Tour is able to make up a big difference with a new media rights deal, title sponsorships of events remain one of the biggest revenue producers for the Tour at a time that it needs to be making more money, not less.
It is quite possible this is simply one of many ideas that has been floated. But if it happens, it would seemingly be among the more drastic of the ideas.
Known as a “Friday news dump,” the Nicklaus Companies announced after business hours Friday that it was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the wake of last month’s $50 million defamation judgment against the company awarded to … Jack Nicklaus.
The ongoing legal saga that has pitted the 18-time major champion against the company that carries his name means that the company is likely to appeal the judgment that came last month in Florida.
Nicklaus, 85, according to the lawsuit, claimed that company owner Howard Milstein, company executive Andrew O’Brien and others had spread false stories including that Nicklaus was negotiating a $750 million deal to join the LIV Golf League as an ambassador and that he was suffering from dementia and no longer able to handle his affairs.
The jury did not find Milstein nor O’Brien personally liable. But the company in its Friday release said it disputes the overall finding and that it is exploring appeal options.
The Nicklaus Companies filed for bankruptcy protection after Jack Nicklaus won a $50 million judgment. / THOMAS CORDY/PALM BEACH POST / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
The filing, according to the release, will allow the Nicklaus Companies “to proactively address its long-term funded indebtedness and other liabilities, as well as a jury verdict returned in a Florida state court last month following a lawsuit filed by company founder and former co-chair Jack Nicklaus.”
According to Nicklaus companies chief executive Phil Cotton in the release: “We take this step to protect our brand, our client relationships, and—most importantly—our employees. We are dedicated to protecting the brand and continuing to offer the highest standard of service to our clients all over the world.”
The Chapter 11 filing will allow the company to operate in a business as usual manner.
In the aftermath of the announcement, Bloomberg News reported that according to the Chapter 11 filing, the Nicklaus companies listed assets of $10 million to $50 million with liabilities between $500 million and $1 billion.
A lawsuit earlier this year filed by the Nicklaus Companies against the Hall of Fame golfer had been dismissed. It attempted to prevent him from using his name, image and likeness to promote golf course design business after he left the company.
Nicklaus’s ties to Milstein go back to 2007 when they agreed on a $145 million deal that saw Milstein acquire a minority stake in a new company that included golf course design and other golf-equipment entities.
Sami Valimaki’s victory on Sunday at the RSM Classic marked the end of the official PGA Tour season after 34 weeks of the FedEx Cup season that concluded in August at the Tour Championship, then followed by seven more FedEx Fall events that helped determine who will be in the first two signature events, as well as full and conditional status in 2026.
Valimaki, 27, who became the first player from Finland to win on the PGA Tour, did himself a world of good over the last month, going from fighting for his fully exempt status to 51st in the FedEx Cup, thus earning those starts at Pebble Beach and Riviera early next year. He also receives a two-year PGA Tour exemption and at 40th in the Official World Golf Ranking is all but assured of a start in his first Masters.
The new PGA Tour season begins on Jan. 15 at the Sony Open after the Sentry tournament has been canceled. Valimaki, who normally would have qualified for the Sentry with the win, will get a spot in the RBC Heritage instead if he doesn’t otherwise qualify. (That is the case for any PGA Tour winner not in the top 50 in FedEx Cup points.)
Until then, the PGA Tour will have a couple of offseason events, including Tiger Woods’s Hero World Challenge next week, where Scottie Scheffler defends his title. Woods is not competing but it’s still possible that he joins his son, Charlie, at the PNC Championship later in December. The tournament for major winners and a family member is holding a spot for the duo, who lost in a playoff last year to Bernhard Langer and his son, Stefan.
Tiger Woods and his son Charlie could play again next month at the PNC Championship, depending on Tiger’s recovery from an October back procedure. / Nathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images
The 36-hole exhibition would allow Woods to ride a golf cart and not require him to hit all the shots in the scramble format. He is recovering from an October back surgery that saw him have disk replacement surgery, a procedure that is said to have a three-month recovery. December golf seems too soon, but perhaps in limited doses it can work.
If that’s not enough … the DP World Tour’s 2025–26 season begins this week in Australia with the Australian PGA, followed by next week’s Australian Open, where Rory McIlroy will play Royal Melbourne for the first time. It has a few more events in South Africa to wrap up the year.
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