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No Laying Up - Golf Podcast

1154: Forecasting The 2028 PGA Tour Schedule

08 May 2026

Transcription

Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

Chapter 1: What significant changes are expected in the 2028 PGA Tour schedule?

1.263 - 9.074 Soly

Be the right club. Be the right club today.

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10.276 - 20.511 DJ Pie

Yes! Johnny, that's better than most. How about him? That is better than most.

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20.531 - 42.258 Soly

Better than most! Expect anything from me! Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No Laying Up Podcast. Solly here. Got a little bonus episode for you this week, something we've been teasing for a while. I am joined by the gentleman underneath me as we are showing on the screen here, Mr. TC. Hello, TC.

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42.679 - 45.423 TC

Greetings, Solly. I'm really excited for this exercise.

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46.304 - 48.668 Soly

DJ Pie is here. Hello, DJ.

48.715 - 54.345 DJ Pie

Hello. I'm not excited. I'm stressed, stressed the hell out. This was so hard.

54.685 - 57.009 Soly

This is what Dream 18 felt like.

57.21 - 57.75 DJ Pie

Exactly.

57.791 - 66.285 TC

I do feel like this has been hanging over my head for the last 10 days or so since we really started grinding on this.

Chapter 2: How do the hosts plan to draft a theoretical PGA Tour schedule?

347.818 - 363.146 DJ Pie

And then this contract goes through this date and this date's fixed. And oh, by the way, 2028 is an Olympic year. So then the open, all of a sudden was just like, oh God, it just, hold on. It just looks like the schedule now. Like, wait a minute, wait a minute, hold on. I thought we were going to do all these different things.

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363.267 - 374.288 DJ Pie

And you start to slot stuff in and you're like, oh, this is kind of the only way it can work without completely blowing things up. And like, I just don't think that if you're a,

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374.622 - 399.567 DJ Pie

you know billion dollar company you can just take uh all of your incoming revenue and be like no no we're just gonna hit pause and we're gonna rebuild the rocket ship like from scratch i don't think that's what they're gonna do and so i walked away from this exercise just to pour a big kettle of cold water on this exercise like i walked away being like oh man 2028 i don't think it's gonna look that different either for a lot of reasons that we can we can get into

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399.833 - 422.097 TC

Yeah, the big thing for me was, yeah, 28 is a mess because of the Olympics. So you've got the Open going back to – bumping back to August, which means shorter days. And then you've got twice at Riviera that year because the Olympics is at Riviera. So you can't really do a playoff event at Riviera like we've wanted to do.

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422.257 - 424.98 DJ Pie

Be like five weeks apart or something like that.

425.4 - 429.064 TC

Yeah, and I think some of it comes down to –

429.044 - 458.595 TC

the like somebody's gonna have to do something they don't want to do right and it's gonna have to be top players playing three weeks in a row uh including a major or like because there's just not that many weeks that that that you have to play with here cadillac as you'll see keeps keeps tripping us up we got to move the pga back to august because all the future venues are texas and oklahoma and all these places that you're not going to go tour seeded that

460.027 - 474.643 TC

They ceded that territory to the PGA Tour, and the PGA Tour has done a dick with it. The PGA of America ceded that territory to the PGA Tour in August, and they just haven't done anything with it.

474.86 - 476.062 Soly

We're going to change that too though.

Chapter 3: What constraints must be considered when creating the new schedule?

547.475 - 563.355 Soly

And what we have laid out that we're going to get to, we can get to 21. What I didn't realize until getting through this is we're really talking about a 31 to 32 week time period when he said starting in late January to early September, that's only 32 full weeks.

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563.335 - 586.729 Soly

So I don't know a way you can get to 26 without changing what I would consider to be a core of this, which is everyone's going to play all of these. And I don't know if that means literally incentivizing them or forcing them to technically play all of them. We have kind of set this up to be like, we're not going to put three of these in a row because you're going to be there.

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586.749 - 604.033 Soly

Like you're going to be heavily incentivized to be there. These aren't skippable. We're not going to have this situation of truest, you know, Cadillac and PGA Championship and back-to-back-to-back weeks and having Rory and Scotty not play together in any of those. That's what we're building around here. So that's important to note.

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604.053 - 625.97 DJ Pie

I would pause there real quick to say the other big thing that stuck out to me as you move through this is, like, I really am struggling to see how all of these things can be true, which is that, one, we're going to have a Track 1 PGA Tour and a Track 2 PGA Tour. Two, we're going to play 21 to 26 of these track one events.

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626.872 - 637.656 DJ Pie

And three, we're going to create scarcity so that people start to quote unquote miss golf. I think you start to lay all those things on top of each other. And I'm like, wait a minute, man. How are we not...

637.636 - 658.21 TC

getting right back to opposite field events and two events on the same week it's just it's a lot to squeeze into a much smaller window than i realized yeah when you when you think about the 120 you know if there's 120 guys in these events let's say 20 to 40 of those are kind of shifting in and out based on recent play and you know moving up and down

658.19 - 685.665 TC

that then takes it to you essentially have to absorb the corn fairy tour into the tier two stuff and then you know maybe there's there's no corn fairy tour you just go pga tour americas um you know the bottom half of the corn fairy tour kind of goes goes into that and then the top half of the corn fairy tour goes into tier two and then on top of that you have to develop a point system that integrates

685.645 - 694.895 TC

both of those levels so that there's easy relegation and promotion and tracking between the two because that certainly doesn't exist right now.

694.955 - 716.408 TC

And I think that's a downfall of the current system is that, you know, like a guy at this point in the season who's off to a terrible start on the PGA Tour and isn't getting into, you know, most events is now wondering, all right, should I put all my eggs in the basket of... the corn fairy tour and play more out there so I can set myself up to kind of earn my way back up here next year.

Chapter 4: How will playoff models impact the crowning of a tour champion?

737.727 - 756.473 DJ Pie

Well, I think just to like triple reiterate what you're saying, it's all like going back to the math. It's like, let's say that there's 31 weeks and we're trying to play 25 of these events. All of a sudden you have six off weeks for, for these track one guys where you're going to have the track two guys have the kind of center stage. Um,

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756.453 - 777.567 DJ Pie

and it's like okay you can take six of those you know call them like the premier mule events which i still think can play well on tv if you have you know like a an event like colonial or something that might not be a track one event but is a really upper echelon track two event like that still makes sense to watch on a sunday afternoon i still still think it can make sense

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777.547 - 795.232 DJ Pie

as part of the TV package. But man, you can't get into the situation where those track two guys... Well, I shouldn't say you can't. I doubt that they would get into a situation where those track two guys are like, all right, you're playing one event this week and then you're off for four weeks when the weather's great. And then you're off for another three weeks until we've got another hole.

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795.372 - 816.413 DJ Pie

So then it's like... going back to the scarcity thing is like dude what are what are we talking about are we having opposite field where these guys are playing is it some hybrid like you're saying tc between the corn fairy tour and the dp world tour all of that sounds cool but also feels like a cluster i think we're when we were talking about it earlier i think you can do it in a way that is

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817.321 - 841.354 Soly

uber confusing on that second level as long as when you get to sunday afternoon you understand what the putts mean i don't know if you want to elaborate on that a little bit and for the purposes of this podcast we are going to be focusing a lot more on the top championship level and we're going to be a little vague on how to sort out exactly what you're talking about here but if you're going to tear this system that's a problem that's a question that needs to get answered as well but i think

841.334 - 858.552 Soly

What we're going to ultimately ladder up to today is when we change the championship structure, the top level structure at track one, we're going to simplify a points list that can only be earned. Those points can only be earned in track one events. And let's just call them championship track events.

859.213 - 877.42 Soly

When we show them up on the schedule here, everything in yellow on the screen here is going to be a championship track events. That is for the PGA Tour championship. Like that is what everybody is playing for. Again, this can be loose. 100 exempt players, 20 of the spots can be up and down for promotion relegation, Aon next 10, Swing 5, whatever you want to call it.

877.58 - 892.061 Soly

That is the detail part that we're not going to... I don't have a specific answer rolled out for you exactly here, but this is an opportunity at that level to break the exact problem you're talking about, TC, of, like, am I a PGA Tour player? Am I a Corn Fairy Tour player?

892.081 - 913.51 Soly

Like, let's solidify that to the point where those guys are all playing under one points qualification system that is listed on the website, is available to you, but is not, like, it's not the Bible. It's not, like, the guideline of what's happening here. Like, there is a priority ranking system in professional golf as it stands now that we, like, don't have access to.

Chapter 5: What challenges arise from scheduling events in Olympic years?

1706.055 - 1729.291 Soly

Again, we had to stretch this one to try to find a way to get to 21 total events. But I and stretching it back into a January start, there's no way to avoid football if you want to start in late January. If your rollout, the previous iteration that we did of this included the Amex in this spot. But based on reading, if I'm reading the tea leaves, he's talking about like a dramatic opening start.

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1729.371 - 1734.717 Soly

And I don't think a track two event is what would kick off the 2028 PGA Tour schedule.

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1734.697 - 1750.596 TC

So and for anybody that wants to play beforehand, the Dubai Desert Classic typically Historically, it ends on that January 23rd date. They could maybe bump that up earlier and have that be something.

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1750.616 - 1773.968 TC

You could even, if Golf Australia knew at all what they were doing, they could bump something into the beginning of the year and have that, but based on the announcement that we saw that they're going to a course that does not yet even exist that Greg Norman is building in Adelaide, that they're completely fucking clueless. Yeah. We're kind of writing them off here.

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1774.79 - 1797.643 Soly

We are most definitely writing off Australia for the 2028 calendar. We are going to give you your 2029 and beyond to have fun with that. We are struggling to fit all of the American events into a calendar here. And we asked Brian about the international aspect of this, and his answer did not leave us thinking that is where the PGA Tour is headed. So again...

1797.623 - 1817.083 Soly

Would a schedule we put together look a little different from a global perspective? Would we love to see the PGA Tour be more global? The answers to that are all, of course, yes. Again, we are working in a reality-based system where the money is in the U.S. and the corporate dollars are here, and that's where the events are likely to be staged.

1817.806 - 1833.216 Soly

Torrey Pines, again, not our favorite venue, but has hosted the PGA Tour for a long time. It's recognizable. You got the paragliders out there. Nance will be there. You know, it always used to kind of feel like the kickoff when Tiger would play it as well. Kind of a return.

1833.196 - 1839.129 Soly

If we're going to have Tori on the counter, getting the top players playing it is better than having the mules play it, I think.

1839.449 - 1866.378 TC

And hey, maybe if they're going to commit to it, maybe we can get a little renovation going on. Sure. Get somebody in there. I know it's a muni. I know the city owns and operates it, but... It doesn't mean that it has to just be Reese Jones all the way through. I think there's some pretty low-hanging fruit that they could make work at Torrey to really enhance the golf course and the competition.

Chapter 6: How do the hosts envision the integration of match play into the tour?

2260.189 - 2265.034 DJ Pie

Like, why did we change anything again? You know, the whole house of cards falls apart.

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2265.714 - 2277.045 TC

Yeah, and then you think about, all right, maybe we put the Cadillac there. Well, then you run into, all right, we've got, and that's where it's kind of like, all right, maybe, all right, the players goes back to May. Yeah.

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2278.932 - 2288.503 TC

Then we open that up, and then we could do the Cadillac earlier, and then we could have a proper lead into the Masters and everything because everything just kind of falls by the wayside. Now we've got to move the PGA.

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2288.523 - 2304.601 Soly

There's a whole other set of phone calls for you. Great day to be recording this. We're recording it here on May 7th as we're publishing it. 93 in Ponte Vedra here today, just in May. So it is like a, yeah, the May players wasn't that fun either when it got super hot.

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2304.681 - 2305.902 TC

The May players was great.

2305.882 - 2325.679 Soly

yeah it was that last year they had it though it was smoking hot and I was like ah okay I think I'm kind of ready for March it was better with Bermuda okay so that is going to take us into the next week where we're going to hit the mini little Florida stretch of signatures here upper track events March 6th Sunday is Bay Hill

2325.659 - 2341.693 Soly

And this is something that I think the Cadillac helped emphasize here, which is like your long-standing tournaments at venues that have, I don't want to use the word iconic for a golf course that I despise, but like it's recognizable.

2341.673 - 2367.276 Soly

people know it it has the arnold palmer tie uh like this is an asset to the pga tour like you're not throwing the baby out with the bath water on with this new structure and like bay hill is an asset people know the golf course it's familiar like the familiarity is what's it helps people to tune in and we do not need a bunch of cadillacs popping up here so when in doubt we are cars

2367.256 - 2372.988 Soly

We are prioritizing the classic events over these brand new markets that they're also talking about.

Chapter 7: What potential issues could arise with sponsorship agreements in 2028?

2731.106 - 2735.011 TC

Have the Atlanta lead into the Masters, which maybe we can talk about that for 29.

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2735.252 - 2759.182 Soly

This was a fork in the road as far as putting this together. Because, again, spoiler, we are going to put a signature event here between the Masters and the PGA Championship in Atlanta. Being that there's a market for golf in Atlanta. They have Eastlake. Again, not my favorite, but how much... of Eastlake do I not like because it's August and would it be a lot better in the springtime?

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2759.242 - 2777.647 Soly

I think undoubtedly would be a better event. Vibes would be higher on site, I think, in terms of attendance and just people wanting to be outdoors. So I don't want to write off Atlanta and Eastlake completely. And I think that there is a spot somewhere in here that would make sense. And there is a world where exactly what you're talking about, TC, happens ahead of the Masters.

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2777.968 - 2782.654 Soly

Everybody plays in Atlanta, then heads down the road and plays in Augusta.

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2782.634 - 2791.783 TC

and then i feel like then it opens up that may 1st date for like let's say they wanted to do a big event in nashville or something like that that new bounty club which is weird

2792.033 - 2811.623 Soly

But again, this is where Cadillac made things really hard on us in that we got to find a spot for it. If you put it in the March 20 spot, that's three in a row with Bay Hill players, Cadillac. And four out of five. If you put a signature right before the Masters now, you know, then you have Cadillac, Atlanta signature, then Masters.

2811.703 - 2827.351 Soly

And then you got to move Heritage the week after that to somewhere else on the calendar, which... We kept with keeping the heritage after the Masters because that's something that people have tended to enjoy as well. So all that to say, after the Cadillac, which ends March 27th, we have Houston.

2827.892 - 2840.849 TC

Zali, real quick. Do we know that Cadillac wants to be a tour sponsor? Because January 2028, there's an administration change. And I could see you wanting to get out of that contract as well.

2841.75 - 2852.668 DJ Pie

I was going to say, can we put this one in pencil maybe as a Atlanta question mark? If all things go properly, maybe we can get our Atlanta dream here.

Chapter 8: What are the implications of merging the PGA Tour with the Corn Fairy Tour?

3377.361 - 3378.683 Soly

Well, the hollow stays on the calendar.

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3379.143 - 3396.758 TC

Um, so 20, so in 2028, our PGA championship is at the O club in San Francisco. Yeah. So we're going, it's Olympic club, Charlotte. Olympic, you know, Charlotte, San Francisco.

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3396.778 - 3409.065 Soly

And then back east, eastward, eastward to May 29 would be Byron Nelson, which is again a contract CJ is under contract.

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3410.007 - 3413.374 DJ Pie

While right, isn't that one like, that one's like 2032 or something.

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3414.974 - 3422.926 Soly

CJ Cup through 2033, actually. Oh, my God. How? They just redid Craig Ranch. So, again, that's got to be.

3423.507 - 3434.684 TC

All right, let's do some horse trading. Let's hold this at Frisco, at Omni PGA Frisco, and we can free that up from PGA Championship.

3434.704 - 3436.988 DJ Pie

Jailbreak for the PGA Championship.

3437.008 - 3438.45 Soly

Yeah.

3438.43 - 3452.232 DJ Pie

I would listen to that proposal. God, I just would love to introduce some of those CJ executives to our great friends at Colonial. Why don't we just move it over there? Who loses there?

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