I’ve been putting off writing this blog all week, but the PGA Tour announced a new format for next season, changing the schedule more than we’ve ever seen. On my initial thoughts, I think there’s some good and some bad to this.
Right now, since the whole LIV shit a few years ago, the PGA Tour isn’t the best watch. All these signature events with 72 player fields and no cut has gotten boring. It’s the exact same field every week and with guaranteed huge paychecks, it sort of takes out some of the fun the early rounds. Sure, its fun to see all the best golfers play against each other on a weekly basis, but there’s nothing special. Each week is good on it’s own, but it sort of takes out the fun of any guy missing the cut or winning on a weekly basis. Then the other events are just garbage fields, since all the big guns like to take all the non-signature events off. Sure those tournaments anything could happen, but when the field strength is so low, that takes some fun out of it to.
This week, new commissioner Brian Rolapp announced a new two track system of the PGA Tour featuring the Championship Series and the Challenger Series. The Championship Series will feature up to 24 events in the year, including 16 signature events, The Players Championship, and the majors. We’re back to big fields and cuts, which I think is great. The fields for these events will be around 120 golfers and have a cut. To play on the Championship Series, the top 90 golfers the previous season will retain their Championship Series spot for the following year, and the top 20 on the Challenger Series will be elevated. There won’t be crossover during the season, unless a golfer on the Challenger Series wins twice in a season and gets instantly elevated. The Challenge Series will also have weaker full fields with a cut.
I think the new format for the Championship Series is great, and I love that we’re getting a cut back. Golf is hard. You have to play well to make the cut to even have a chance to win money in a week, and it’s even harder to win in a full field.
My biggest complaints are on the Challenger Series side, which even Rory McIlroy said will be like “glorified Korn Ferry Tour events”, and I can’t disagree with that. I think the PGA Tour has gotten stale with how many shitty events there are and now, with the season feeling too long and with no breaks in there. Not only will there be an entire schedule of these events, but there will be multiple weeks that there are events running on both the Championship and Challenger Series. Cause that’s what we need, more shitty golf. Sure I can bet on two tournaments each of those weeks, but who’s watching the Challenger Series at that point. You’re telling me that there’s going to be casual golf fans picking to watch random guys they’ve never heard of playing random events while Rory and Scottie battle it out in the Championship Series. It’s gonna be a failure. The one thing that I think ends up getting that Challenger Series to be interesting is the failure of LIV Golf. After this season concludes (if it even does), LIV will be no more. I don’t see any reason for the PGA to push back on letting those LIV guys back on tour. Just give them the path to get back on the Challenger Tour. Then there could be some interest there.
There needs to be some kind of middle ground here. We went from a broken model to a different type of broken model in my opinion.
Along with those big changes to the structure of the tour, there are some other good aspects being added to the mix.
The fall schedule will be changed from the current weak swing season with lower FedEx Cup points to an international elevated event schedule that will have Championship Series golfers playing in multiple events worldwide, co-sanctioned by the DP World Tour. I think that could bring some fun bonus golf.
The points structure of the FedEx Cup will change with a less confusing format, and even point distributions. Another good thing. And the end of the season will now have the Tour Championship rotate multiple courses rather than just going back to East Lake with a 30 man field every year.
More could be announced and changed by the Tour by the time these changes go into effect next year with a new schedule and I’m quite interested to see how it shakes out, along with how the PGA Tour handles the end of LIV.
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