We’ve heard from new CEO Brian Rolapp and Future Competition Committee chair Tiger Woods about their aims for the new PGA Tour, but what do they mean in actual terms?
Parity, simplicity and scarcity have been the three buzzwords repeated by both Rolapp and Woods – and they seem to be the cornerstones of big changes they hope to impliment by 2027.
You may like
Why less could be more for the PGA Tour
Rolapp joined from the NFL, where there’s just 18 weeks of regular season games before knockout playoffs, and he feels the PGA Tour could benefit from similar streamlining.
“It’s creating more events that matter,” Rolapp said of adding a scarcity aspect to top-level PGA Tour events.
The 2025 season had 46 events on the schedule including Majors, Signature Events, opposite-field events, FedEx Cup playoffs and the Fall Series – having all those categories in itself shows why ‘simplicity’ is also a buzzword for the future.
Harris English recently mentioned starting the season after the Super Bowl in early February and removing Signature Events in favor of 20 equal tournaments in a reduced overall schedule.
And doesn’t that make a lot of sense? You can argue about the final number of tournaments, but having fewer top-tier golf events and having them all worth the same surely kills two birds with one stone – offering simplicity and scarcity.
You may like
Creating the Signature Events was in response to LIV Golf offering huge prize money boosts – it was not necessarily a plan to improve the Tour schedule as a whole, and there’s certainly been issues with some of them.
The timing of the RBC Heritage the week after The Masters for example doesn’t help with the ‘flow’ of a season Rolapp is keen to impliment.
And it’s still just eight events, which works the other way in lessening the importance of the rest of the schedule – so a calendar of 20-odd events on the same scale on the face of things should create “more events that matter” to satisfy Rolapp’s vision.
Post-Super Bowl start makes sense
Let’s face it, competing with the NFL makes no sense – it’s the dominant force in American sports and the reason why the PGA Tour brought the traditional end of the season forward to August to avoid a clash.
So it makes sense to do the same thing with the start of the campaign, with a lot of those events in Hawaii and on the West Coast, even Signature Events, getting a bit lost in the public domain.
Pebble Beach is iconic so will always get a bump in ratings, and in 2026 it’s been moved until after the Super Bowl, so that could be an ideal curtain raiser for the season.
So too, though, could the mayhem at the WM Phoenix Open, which is usually played on Super Bowl weekend and is hugely popular. That would certainly start the season off with a bang!
Either way, there are some events the PGA Tour simply has to keep in the schedule, but moving them around to start after the NFL makes perfect sense.
A more global game?
(Image credit: Getty Images)
A final point that I think has been a little lost in all the fallout from all this was this line from Tiger at Albany.
“But don’t forget the golfing year is long,” he said. “So there’s other opportunities and other places around the world or other places to play that can be created and have events. So there’s a scarcity side of it that’s not as scary as people might think.”
This could hint at the PGA Tour finally thinking outside the United States and maybe a possible increase in co-sannctioning DP World Tour events over in Europe or even in the Middle East and beyond.
Most people believe the pinnacle of golf should have a more global feel – and it’s something LIV Golf has done really well, in providing fans from around the world the chance to see genuine superstars play in their country.
Rory McIlroy wants to play a more global schedule moving forward, and if not constrained to attend so many events in the USA in the summer he and others may get their wish.
The NFL issues are negated somewhat when playing beyond September in Europe and elsewhere – and even if just the odd event, if we had star fields for tournaments in India and Australia in particular, fans there have proven they will come out to see it.
Players who want to could improve their global reach and fanbases by getting out there and showing up and increasing golf’s popularity around the world will only be a benefit in the long run.
So scratch beneath the surface of these possible changes and it really could be a case of less in more on the PGA Tour in the future.
CEO Council Forum: A New Experience – YouTube
Watch On
