With everyone from Tiger Woods to Harris English weighing on the matter over the course of the last week, rumours that the PGA Tour is considering drastically cutting its schedule from the 2027 season onwards has tongues wagging across the golfing world.
The leaner, meaner schedule would, according to speculation that’s emerged in recent days, have the PGA Tour start later in February, after the year’s Super Bowl, cutting out a chunk of the Tour’s opening tournaments and creating a more streamlined schedule that’s easier on players, more easy for fans to understand and, crucially, competes less for TV time with the NFL.
There are, of course, some who are concerned at the scale of the changes proposed, with some positing that plans to reduce the schedule to as few as 20 tour events would take chances to both qualify and stay on the tour away from players.
Billy Horschel, however, is not one of those people.
Speaking on Sirius XM’s PGA Tour radio show, Horschel proposed that the reduced schedule, and the added competitiveness it’ll bring for places on tour, will ultimately make the Tour a more consistent product.
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“The thing that I do believe is that if we reduce events or not, the PGA Tour is still going to be the PGA Tour” he said. “It’s not about creating a closed shop… that’s not what the PGA Tour is about.
“You’re going to have to play better golf to get to the PGA TOUR, and there’s nothing wrong with that in my opinion. It just makes it a stronger product,”
“Instead of shooting a 69, you’re going to have to shoot a 66 now,” he continued.
Horschel’s comments come at a pivotal moment in his own 2025 season, one in which he was forced to withdraw from multiple tournaments and three of the tour’s four majors after undergoing hip surgery following The Masters.
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Having slid from the world’s top 20 to a current OWGR ranking of 45th over the course of this season, the American now faces a race against time to secure his own qualification for next year’s opening major.
Playing this week at this week’s Hero World Challenge, perhaps a touch ironically due to a sponsor’s exemption, he’ll need to produce a strong showing at this week to aid his chances.
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