If there was any ambiguity as to Brian Rolapp’s vision for the PGA Tour, it was washed away last week by Tiger Woods, the lead architect and front man for the chief executive’s Future Competition Committee.
“There’s going to be some eggs that are spilled and crushed and broken, but I think that in the end we’re going to have a product that is far better than what we have now, for everyone involved,” Woods said at the Hero World Challenge.
Woods mixed his metaphors but not the message. Using Rolapp’s governing principles of “parity, scarcity and simplicity,” Woods and his fellow FCCer’s — a group that includes Patrick Cantlay, Adam Scott, Camilo Villegas, Maverick McNealy and Keith Mitchell, along with a group of business advisors — have been sussing through countless models of a new and improved Tour schedule. At the core of this exercise, according to various sources, is “scarcity,” which strongly suggests that the current 38-event schedule (which doesn’t include the fall tournaments) is due for a significant haircut.
By most accounts, the goal is to nip/tuck the Tour lineup to around 25 events that are played on the best stages with the best fields and in the biggest markets.
“We started with a blank slate — what would the best product we can possibly create, what would it look like?” the 15-time-major-champion-turned-schedule-wonk explained. “You take a white sheet of paper and you start throwing ideas out there, and there’s like a thousand ideas on this board. Then you add in all the people that we interviewed and what would they like to see and you throw all those up there.”
It’s an exercise that many in the game have started on their own. Woods has an ambitious eye toward the 2027 season, but ’28 is more likely — and on which we’re basing the below theoretical schedule.
“I’m going to give you tournaments and then I’m going to give you venues,” Billy Horschel said with little prompting when asked to come up with his version of a new schedule.
Most of these experiments start after the Super Bowl and end before Labor Day with the obvious goal to avoid football’s all-consuming shadow, and of the half-dozen players interviewed, there were no real themes other than an attempt to create the best product.
Based on player input and expressed goals, here’s what a 2028 PGA Tour schedule could look like:
WM Phoenix Open – Feb. 17-20
“Because of the weather, you’re going to start with Scottsdale. It may not be the best venue but it’s the most eyeballs,” Horschel said. “I think we should start the week after the Super Bowl [which is scheduled for Feb. 13 in 2028]. Even though it’s always been the same week, I think you still get a bigger number [of fans].”
And then?
“There’s no other venue you’d want to go to because of the weather that time of year out west,” Horschel said, “so you go to Florida.”
Miami Championship – Feb. 24-27
“You could start [the season] at Doral, make it like the Daytona 500, sort of the granddaddy big tournament, but Phoenix would work as well,” Ryan Palmer said.
Arnold Palmer Invitational – March 2-5The Players Championship – March 9-12Week off – March 16-19
Much of the discussion with the Future Competition Committee has focused on playing Tour events in major markets and/or on iconic courses. Austin, which hosted the circuit’s match play event from 2016 to 2023, would be a popular option geographically and from a market standpoint for a spring event. There is also the idea that existing tournaments could be relocated to larger markets, like the John Deere Classic moving from Silvis, Illinois, to Chicago, or the Travelers Championship relocating from Cromwell, Connecticut, to New York or Boston.
“We need to go to the biggest markets — right now we are in five of the 30 biggest markets [in the United States]; we need to make it 12 to 15. A third of our events need to be in the biggest markets,” Horschel said. “Then you’re going to have iconic venues that may not be in the biggest markets — Hilton Head, Pebble.”
Austin event – March 23-26Houston Open – March 30-April 2Masters – April 6-9Week off – April 13-16
Off weeks after majors? That has support from many players and media partners.
RBC Heritage – April 20-23Atlanta event – April 27-30Truist Championship – May 4-7Charles Schwab Challenge – May 11-14PGA Championship – May 18-21Week off – May 25-28Memorial – June 1-4RBC Canadian Open – June 8-11U.S. Open – June 15-18Week off – June 22-25
The lead-in to the ’28 Open Championship is complicated by the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, with the Men’s Golf Competition at Riviera Country Club scheduled for July 19-22 and the new Mixed Team event thereafter, July 23-24. For its part, the R&A is shifting its major date from the traditional mid-July spot to the first week of August.
Travelers Championship – June 29-July 2Denver event – July 6-9John Deere Classic – July 13-16Week off – July 20-23Scottish Open – July 27-30
Some players might make the trek across eight time zones to compete in the Scottish Open, or they could head early to the still-to-be-determined Open Championship site to acclimate.
Open Championship – Aug. 3-6Week off – Aug. 10-13
No part of the scheduling experiment would be impacted more than the postseason. This is where a West Coast swing could come into play, when the weather would be considerably better than in February. The venues would also lend gravitas.
Playoff (Pebble Beach) – Aug. 17-20Playoff (Riviera) – Aug. 24-27Playoff (Tour Championship) – Aug. 31-Sept. 3
A reimagined postseason would be complicated by the Tour’s long-standing relationships with FedEx — which currently sponsors the season-long points race and the first playoff event in Memphis, where the shipping giant has its global headquarters — and East Lake, which has hosted the season finale every year since 2004.
Getting the likes of Pebble Beach on board for a move to August would also be economically challenging for the resort.
“In a perfect world, we’d go play Pebble at this time of year [late summer], but we don’t have carte blanche to say where we go because most of these are private clubs or resorts like Pebble Beach, and if I’m Pebble Beach, you want that week [in August] for people who pay money to play golf,” Brian Harman said. “It’s super complicated. Of course we’d love to play Pebble in August, but so would everyone else on the planet.”
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According to Woods, there are countless options for a schedule that adheres to Rolapp’s vision of “scarcity.” But even if the FCC can connect all the dots in time for a 2028 rollout, there is sure to be pushback from players who have already seen playing opportunities slashed by the creation of signature events.
“Before LIV, it seemed to be a schedule that worked pretty well. Guys could pick and choose where they wanted to [play],” Tom Hoge said. “Events had roughly the same stature throughout the season.
“You go back to Tiger and Phil [Mickelson], they very rarely played the same events other than WGCs or majors, but they sort of carried those events they chose to play. That model seemed to work pretty good. The beauty of playing the PGA Tour is if you want to take a month off you can, and if you want to play four weeks in a row you can. I don’t love this idea of a reduced schedule.”
There is also the notion that the events that are trimmed from the Tour schedule could create a tier of tournaments just below the primary product and a new platform for promotion and relegation. But that does little to convince some players that a wholesale move to less-is-more is good for the bottom line and the sport.
“This is not growing the game of golf,” Palmer said. “I’m having a hard time seeing how this grows the game.”
Convincing the “middle class” as well as the Tour’s countless partners will likely be a bigger challenge than piecing together a bigger and better schedule, but those who are putting in the work are confident Rolapp’s vision is the correct path forward.
“The hard part is there isn’t a decision that ever gets made that there aren’t winners and losers. That’s the universe, push one way and you get pushed the other way,” said Harman, a member of the Player Advisory Council. “It feels like we’re on to something, like it’s got a little momentum. We’re trying to get more eyeballs on golf. We’re trying to get more people to have an appointment for the week to sit down and watch golf.”
