Substantial changes are on the way for the PGA Tour as Brian Rolapp announced a new competitive structure beginning in 2028. Join us as we react to the new two-tiered system, the February-to-August season, the match-play postseason, and more.
Plus, we get you ready for the third major of the LPGA season as the best women in the world head to Hazeltine National for the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship. Nelly Korda is chasing three in a row, Minjee Lee returns as defending champion, and Lydia Ko looks to complete the career Grand Slam. Presented by Titleist.
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Stamps:
00:00:00-00:02:06: Intro & Run of Show
00:02:07-00:19:55: Championship & Challenge Series Reaction
00:19:56-00:34:21: Maverick McNealy & the FCC
00:34:22-00:36:02: Rhoback & Loch Lomond Whiskies
00:36:03-01:08:10: Reaction, Questions, Knowns & Unknowns
01:08:19-01:20:03: Tony Finau Interview
01:20:04-01:22:29: Jay Monahan’s Retirement
01:22:30-01:34:28: Nelly & the KPMG Women’s PGA
01:34:29-01:45:20: Storylines to Watch
01:45:21-01:49:44: Picks
When it comes to who got boned, it was definitely the Midwest. First, the PGA of America moved the PGA Championship from August to May, making northern venues mostly ineligible. Then, the USGA started scheduling out the U.S. Open through 2050 with a heavy focus on a few mostly coastal anchor sites. And now, the PGA Tour, after making places like Minnesota and Michigan wait decades to get a tournament, gives them less-than-ideal weeks on the schedule—like right after the Open Championship—and is most likely going to reduce them down to being glorified Korn Ferry Tour events that won't even feature players ranked inside the top 120.
My suggestion for new playoffs integrating Match Play.
Assuming 3wk window. Week 1 stroke play with top 64 advancing (from 90 player field). Week 2 = 16 brackets of 4 with round robin match play (Thurs-Sat) with top 2 from each bracket advancing to championship week (16 players). Sunday would be reserved for brackets having a tie for 1st or 2nd place in which players would play match play to declare who advances OR if it's a 3 way tie for 2nd (could be a possibility due to pool play ending in ties) you could have an epic 3 way match using stroke play using the 9pt/hole game (player A gets 5pts for winning the hole player B = 3pts coming in second place player C = 1 pt for last place…if 2 players tie for 1st on a hole = 4/4/1 pt distribution…if all tie = 3/3/3 pts. End of round player with most points advances. Only downside is if all pool play matches are decided by Saturday. In this scenario (to guarantee Sunday TV time and create more drama) you could have all the pool play "losers" (n=16 players) have 18 hole Sunday stroke play with 1 player advancing to championship week. That would give us 17 players going into final week. My solution – have the 17th player challenge/pick from any of the 8 advancing 2nd place finishers to a match play on Wednesday with the winner advancing to championship. Would be great drama to see who the 17th player picks to play (great buzz for the press conference on Monday night). Feel free to pass along to the commish if you like the idea.
Follow up (edit) from earlier suggestion…32 would advance to championship week…the 33rd wildcard (if necessary) would pick from the bottom 16 seeds in the Wednesday challenge match. The wildcard wrinkle could add a lot of fun/drama to championship week imo
have the scottish at the old course in the middle of the five year gap between the opens at the old course
I think Soly is correct that people are not correctly are picturing what the championship series is going to look like. I also think that means people don’t understand how bad the challenger series is going to be. It’s going to be field’s that are weaker than the 2025 Puerto Rico championship. I do not know how they plan to get people to show up for those.
25% is good churn, haven’t watched all this yet, but I’m hoping there’s a promotion relegation tournament for the bottom 30 championship and top 30 challenger
Wait. It’s going to be the same 120 man fields for every single “CHAMPIONSHIP” event? Are you kidding me? Am I misunderstanding?
I was so optimistic about this but that fking sucks
If I’m a lower level Championship Series guy, would I prefer to play in the Challenger Series all year so I can actually make good money?
I’m not a Finau fan but he genuinely seems like such a good dude.
Love the matchplay. New tier system seems very English football inspired.
TC, you have to stop retreating mid sentence into the mumbly, almost under your breath tone.. it happens so often and is very annoying. It's a damn audio product have some pride!
Royal County Down Irish Open would be amazing after open
I think the postseason changes have potential but I'm not seeing all that much to be excited about regarding the 2-track system. I don't think it will feel that much different since let's be honest, once you get past the Top 50 you're into Mule territory and the names become kind of interchangeable. And the Challenger track is going to have zero interest from fans unless there are a lot of Hank Lebioda/Sami Valimaki fans out there.
2026 KPMG Women's PGA Championship:
One pick- Chisato Iwai
Three dark🏇horses-
Ina Yoon
Amanda Doherty
Rio Takeda
Thanks guys huge fan – have a question you guys might know. If Koivun came out right now would he be on track 1 or 2? Maybe unknown as eligibility hasn’t been announced just wondering. Cheers!
Prediction: Challenger tour is going to end up on CW. Fits their MO
So weird hearing Maverick McNealy speak like a seasoned vet about a TOUR he’s had a cup of coffee on.
they should do a swiss bracket for the tour championship
I do not think the golf media understands how un-tenable the Challenger Series is going to be in terms of sponsors and fan interest. You at least would have a couple Top 20 guys show up to the smaller events. Now? What are sponsors going to get?
I think the reason the media loves this so much is they can now completely ignore a bunch of events….and no longer have to really cover 1/2 of the Tour….which is exactly how they treat the Korn Ferry Tour.
What fan is going to pay to go watch at best, the 131st ranked player? At least under the current model, tournaments such as the 3M or say, the Valspar get players in the Top 20 to provide some star power? The Challenger Series is going to sink….and the PGA Tour is going to have to prop up those events.
Have fun telling Corey Conners, Nick Taylor and McKenzie Hughes they're forbidden from playing in the Canadian Open, fellas… #TillyTime
Elevate ‘The Players’ to major status and make the match play at the end of the year the ‘PGA Championship’
Whoa, tough crowd on Jeeno. I think your expectations have been too high, even for her.
As much as I'm tempted to pick Hyo Joo Kim at Haseltine, I'm instead going with Nasa Hataoka.
Matchplay format needs to be a 32 man, double elimination bracket similar to how HS/NCAA wrestling brackets work. Sunday would have 1st, 3rd, and 5th place matches, as well as the remaining 26 players playing an 18 hole stroke play event for final placing from 7-32.
Tired: Charley = Tommy
Wired: Jeeno = Ludvig
Let's face it…there will wind up being more "carve outs" in this than a Charcuterie Board.
It's a complete joke. Like trotting an obviously unwell & unhealthy former meal ticket fresh out of rehab and likely facing a jail sentence? Really? The PGAT has reached Peak Desperate.
Im not sure they've thought through how little people will care about the Challenger series.
Any sponsor for a 100-man mule race is a sucker. Current golf media doesn't have the bandwidth or the inclination to tell the stories and make it captivating.
Also, the TV product is still going to suck big time on the Championship series – which is the main issue.
The new format may be what NLU wanted, but it's definitely not what Soly et al. predicted. Pod after pod saying the signature events were just the beginning and star players were going to benefit more and more while the mules would get left behind… The new format is way better for the mules (aka guys without a lot of name recognition with owgrs in the 60-150 range) and worse for the top players than the current "signature event" setup. And Rory was right; the Challenger/Track 2 series is closer to tge current Korn ferry than it is to the lesser PGA events as they exiwted pre-LIV/signature series..
Bangalang!