Is the new PGA Tour schedule fair to everyone, or does it just benefit the best players in the world? Jake Knapp shares his thoughts on the elevated events and how he shapes his schedule every year.
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I want to talk about the top 50 because it’s just it’s crazy since these signature events have come about like how important that is. I mean you finished 55th this year. You’re in a great spot but that top 50 number just for the people at home that don’t know like how important is that considering there’s now nine signature events in 2026. Yeah. I mean they got rid of Mexico which I’m not happy about and then added another signature event. So that’s a double at Dal. Get in that one because it helps to hit it really far there. Yeah. Yeah. There’s um you know I mean I mean hopefully I’ll you know keep inside the top 60 going into next year. So I’ll be into AT&T and uh Genesis. So that’ll be good. But yeah, I mean the top 50 is huge. I mean not only for planning out your schedule cuz then you really get to pick and choose what you’re playing and not. You can kind of get into a weird place if you do play well. Not that it’s a bad thing, but then you’re stuck in between. Well, do I take a regular week off or do I play seven in a row because now I’m into this elevated event. So, it’s um it’s it’s a lot more difficult. And not to mention, if you can just play halfway decent in like two or three elevated events, it’s ridiculous what it does, you know? I mean, now they’ve they’ve changed the point structure and you get a lot of points if you just finish like top 12 or whatever it is. So, I mean, a, you know, a 10th or an 11th in an elevated event is like finishing third in a in a regular event. So, I know you played four of them this year, but like and it feels like you’ve been out on the PJ tour a lot longer than you have. like he’s played 50 career events. Like it’s really not that much. But do you like how this schedule is shaping out and everything? Not really. No, I haven’t heard one person. I don’t know that anybody does other than the top 10 dudes in the world that seem to be calling the shots. Like do this, shrink everything, more money. Yeah. I think I think you have 200 feet up and Scotty be like, “Yeah, I don’t really care.” Yeah. Yeah. I don’t think it’s wrong, you know? I think that like the good players are the good players and the guys who aren’t aren’t. It’s just like I think sometimes it just you know yeah you have the one guy who maybe played his way into an elevated event and then kind of back doors like a seventh place finish and all of a sudden they’re 11th on the points list and you’re like what the heck just happened? So um I don’t know. I I don’t think there’s like a a perfect system. I don’t think we’ve quite found that and I think that’s why it’s changing so much year to year. I just think we got to like almost look at it and just revamp everything and and really look at what we’re doing. It’s just hard to keep up for everyone too. like fans and stuff as I’m like actually I don’t know I think they just changed that but going being a guy that was on the bubble going into St. Jude is that is that the closest feeling resembling Q school you think now with just where that 50 number what that 50 number gets? Yeah, I think so. Cuz it’s like it’s strange and we talked about at the beginning of the week with Joe and everything. It’s like this is probably the only tournament all year that you’re like okay with not winning. Yeah. you know, like there’s it’s like the only event where you’re like 15th is great this week just because of what it does for you the following year. And you know, I I I hadn’t been hitting my irons all that well towards the end of the year and unfortunately that course is just like a mid iron on every single hole and so it just kind of kind of outed me on that. But um but yeah, I mean it’s just it’s just a it’s a totally different mindset going into that week cuz like I don’t you don’t really think about the 50 number cuz it can even change so much based on who’s tied with who and all that sort of stuff. But um if anything about that week is I I just I hate the fact that it’s four times points cuz like last year I was 57 or eight going into that event and if it wasn’t four times points so I finished top 50 and this year it was the exact same thing and I’m like you know it’s not really a seasonl long race if you’re just going to make it about you know same thing in my opinion about the tour championship. It’s not a seasonl long race if it just comes down to who wins the final event. Like that’s just not Yeah, it’s not what it is. That’s another thing they need to like clarify. Are we a playoff? Are we season long? What are we doing here? Do we just care about excitement around one event or do we care about rewarding who played the best for an entire season? If you’re going to keep season long race on there, you can’t say Tommy Fleetwood’s your FedEx Cup champion. No. Yeah. No. I mean, there’s one guy and it was over before it started. And there’s going to be some years where like if you want to do the season long thing that it’s not going to be that exciting come down the stretch and that’s okay. Like it can still be exciting as to who wins the golf tournament. They they did that and then they changed it to where if you were in the top five going into the tour championship and you won like you won the FedEx Cup, I’m fine with that. That makes it exciting. And I’m fine with giving out two trophies at East Lake because that’s a seasonl long race. Like it’s okay. I mean, I always bring up the example of one of the years Roy Rory Maroy won, he went into a playoff with Kevin Chapel and Ryan Moore. And Dustin Johnson was number one going in. And if Chappie or Ryan Moore won that playoff, DJ wins the FedEx Cup. If Rory wins, he wins it. And so DJ’s sitt there just no control watching these two guys. And it made it I thought that makes it exciting. For sure. Yeah. I I think that whole like season long thing is just kind of it doesn’t make sense at the moment. Yeah. just give two different things like here’s our season long winner Scotty you won everything here’s all the trophies all the money we’re starting a playoff now and you’re at zero and you’re at zero and you’re at zero and we’re going to we’re going to have a playoff race well I think that would be even better you know it’s like let’s not just have it be about one week let’s make you know the FedEx championship whatever like those final 30 guys let’s have them play four weeks and reset the points list and let’s just you know even then I don’t think it’s that great I still think it should be like a season long cuz now you’re just saying that like hey we know you played really well on the west coast but like that doesn’t matter I was laughing. I played with Rom today and I mean two holes in he’s like you know all you PJ tour people say our points race sucked. How do you how was this? I was like whoa whoa whoa. I said they both suck. Don’t bring me into that. I mean it’s tough like you know no matter what decision you make some people aren’t going to like it and that just is what it is too.
30 Comments
Can you believe everyone had to go to Tour School every year before 1971? Then, money took over.
I think this is still heading in the right direction though. you want all the best players consolidated in events. I think the average Golf fan doesn’t really care about 51 to 150 on tour.
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PGA Tour is unwatchable! Boring whites, playing slow golf for millions of $$, with no charisma!
I'm not quite sure I understand his perspective. Is he saying that his preference of "season long" would be to accumulate points on a leaderboard throughout the year and then whoever is at the top at the end of the year determines the Fedex Cup Champ? So then Scotty has another monster year, accumulates enough points to be well ahead of everyone else and then can just peace out for the rest of the season after the Open. Then the fans stop watching towards the end of the season cause the only players still playing the last tournaments are the ones trying to save their card. And yea, imo the guy who finishes top ten or better frequently throughout the year should be considered better then the guy who wins a lower tier event and fails to make the cut in half of the other tournaments. Maybe I'm thinking about this wrong but it just seems like a nonsensical alternative to the current format.
Colt starting to have those obese looking rolls on his arms….also, no matter where you move the goalpost there's gonna be people pissed off about where they are because they're on the edge
PGA tour trying to be keep up with liv innovation, but they fail cuz they r run by old boomers that think everything runs through southern Florida from 50 years ago.
Elevated events should be increased $ not increased points
Worst of all, the PGA Tour formats are boring! As far as the fan experience on tv and in person right now, It's at the bottom of the barrel. They need some people over there, who can think outside. Just look at LIV and get some ideas. Not everything from them, but they have some unique ideas that are fun for fans and players alike.
So play better, get into the top 10, then you get to influence. Until then, say thank you. Or go to LIV and learn how to lose your skills and become irrelevant.
The tour champ should be a 32 man match play bracket. Like March Madness. The whole year is seeding. Gives a chance for underdogs but the better you do, the better your odds of winning.
It's good because the smaller events like John Deere will get better fields than in years past with the # of cards shrinking, so every event has more importance. If you don't like it, play better.
Ken Venturi was going to visit Ben Hogan while the tour was in Fort Worth one year. Gary McCord went along. At some point, Hogan asked McCord what he did. McCord explained that he played the tour and worked for CBS. Hogan then asked what tournaments McCord had won. McCord said he hadn't won. Hogan asked what he was doing on the tour.
Pretty simple solutions can fix some things. Number 1, keep the prize money the same but signature events shouldn’t be worth more points, only majors and the playoffs should. Second, the tour championship should be a match play event. 32 guys, winner take all, seeding is determined by their points. Third, mix it up a little bit during the regular season. All we have is one team event with 2 guys on a team, everything else is just a normal tournament. Add a match play event in, add another team event in with 4 guys on a team. I like the normal tournaments but I think there should be a little more variety than only 1 non traditional tournament a year.
7 takes: 1 nice to get an easily digestible 5 min of this show. 2 I read about this and wanted to see it. 3 Jake talks about a back door 7th moving way up to 11th but as mentioned he had 4 sig event starts and is 55th.
4 the signature events are good to get everyone together at the best places 5 but sig events need bigger fields of at least 100 players.
6 don’t give me the I can’t accept Tommy Fleetwood stuff. Many times the best player did not win the fed ex cup. Thats sports! Thats playoffs! Playoffs!
7 Scottie won the comcast regular season championship and like 20 million dollars before the playoffs even started. The playoffs should be even more cut throat round by round, except for maybe a few byes for top players, the bottom of each event should be out of the playoffs. Absolutely.
You people are the ones who keep holding this whole playoff thing back with this lame I can’t accept talk. Stop it already.
Scottie will also be the pga tour POY.
How many accolades does he need for yall to accept he can lose in the playoffs ?
For crying out loud …
If the top ten in the world are calling shots, then become one of the top ten, right?
Not gonna find a bigger Knapp fan. But with his swing, no reason he’s outside the top 50. Heck top20.
No one does a poorer job than the PGA in defining their sport. The points, special tournaments etc. The FedEx event is so poorly defined for the fans. I don't think a number of the players clearly understand the point system either. There is so much money being handed out and yet it is totally unclear to fans, and the suspense is completely removed from the event itself. It needs to be fixed.
Life's not fair Jakey boy
They should get out of the US more, too many boring boring samey courses
Jay Monahan makes more money than the entire purse for the entire year on the korn ferry tour. The LIV guys were right to leave the greedy bastards running the PGA.
The problem with the PGA Tour is the last 2 or 3 events can be a massive anti-climax – that's why they changed the rules again for the Tour Championship. It's not perfect or fair but it's probably never going to be perfect or fair.
However the big guns are getting it far too easy as they just need to win one of these 70 field events to maintain their lofty position. Even a couple of top 5 finishes will do the trick.
PGA Tour have also been protecting certain players as we have seen with Fowler getting in events he shouldn't have been in.
They had to go back to Doral to stroke the owner’s fragile ego.
Jake been the king of selling my parlay
Watch your mouths
Seems that good play week in and week out solves many issues about what's fair. Golf's not fair and neither is life. Think Jake Knapp is coming into his time. FedEx cup was the golf world trying to be like all other sports with one champion for the year. It's never going to be the super bowl for golf, that it's trying to be. Not with 4 majors and the players every year.
I like when golfers that are still making millions of dollars , even over the span of their whole career , are complaining that they can’t do whatever they want … golfers shouldn’t be able to pick and choose anyways , but the best players in the world should have more say than someone who’s closer to the other end of the top 100 or whatever … play better
Golf is one of the only sports where you can kind of just go through the motions and once and awhile do ok and still be fine and make a ton of money
People complaining about the PGA tour and how complicated it is? It seems like if you win, you go up in world rankings and you win money. Yes you have to qualify for stuff but you just have to play well. Players who say it’s not fair or this or that usually are the ones who can’t get over the line. Look at Tommy Fleetwood or Charlie Hull – no wins for ages but keep grinding, no complaining there.
Rickie loves the signature events and their sponsors!
'Sometimes you have the one guy who maybe played his way into an elevated event and then kinda backdoors like a 7th place finish and all of a sudden they're 11th in the points list and you're like what the heck just happened"… buddy just described his 2024 season and JJ Spaun's 2025 season. Play well, get rewarded. Simple.