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Chapter 1: What are the anticipated changes in the 2028 PGA Tour schedule?
Be the right club. Be the right club today.
Yes! Johnny, that's better than most. How about him? That is better than most.
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.
Greetings, Solly. I'm really excited for this exercise.
DJ Pie is here. Hello, DJ.
Hello. I'm not excited. I'm stressed, stressed the hell out. This was so hard.
This is what Dream 18 felt like.
Exactly.
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.
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Chapter 2: How do the hosts envision a playoff model for the PGA Tour?
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.
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,
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
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.
Be like five weeks apart or something like that.
Yeah, and I think some of it comes down to –
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
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.
We're going to change that too though.
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Chapter 3: What constraints are influencing the new PGA Tour schedule?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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
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
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.
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.
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Chapter 4: How will the 2028 PGA Tour address player participation and scheduling conflicts?
And which is at a TPC course that they operate.
Yeah. It's like, I, you know, I don't know what that, what's going to happen, but like, man, my best guest is, is pretty pessimistic on, on which choice they would end up making to look at what happened to Hawaii.
right it's uh you know i get it that they're i was gonna say they're not running a charity but they kind of are that's a whole other conversation i don't know if they are uh yeah it's a uh it's just it's yeah it's weird it's weird yeah like our dream 2028 schedule would have kapalua as the kickoff we are sad to see that go but that has been announced it's not happening so yeah uh that's not gonna happen here it's not gonna be sony on the calendar uh for a lot of reasons there but
As we just saw with the Cadillac, the proper spacing of these bigger events is going to be important. So we're working under a self-imposed no three in a row rule in setting out these signature events. What we have found to be a struggle and I think is going to be a tough something to navigate for Rolap and the gang is not everyone has the same strategy playing into majors.
And it's also impossible to or very unlikely to implement strategies a strategy, the same strategy around majors as far as where you're putting your signature events, either before or after them. It just is not going to gap out very well to do the same thing for all four of those majors, plus the Olympics in an Olympic year.
So there's going to be some on the schedule that have a signature event the week before it. There's going to be some that have a signature event the week after. It is not uniform, but there's a lot of, you know, a lot of shuffling of the deck here and putting the cards in a certain order that make it quite challenging.
But I think just overriding fact, though, is we were not going to do three in a row anymore and make it easy for these guys to skip them. So, and not four out of five. I don't think we have any four out of fives as well, so... Before we get to the schedule, I do want to work quickly from the bottom of what we're laddering up to.
One of the biggest flaws currently with the PGA Tour is a playoff that is not a playoff and a championship that almost nobody cares about. That's a goal of all this. No offense, TC. No offense.
No, none taken. I mean, you know, he's the open or he's, he's the champion domestic champion golfer of the year on paper.
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Chapter 5: What are the proposed signature events for the 2028 PGA Tour?
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.
And I don't think a track two event is what would kick off the 2028 PGA Tour schedule.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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Chapter 6: How does the 2028 schedule impact the traditional golf calendar?
Like, why did we change anything again? You know, the whole house of cards falls apart.
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.
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.
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.
The May players was great.
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
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.
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
We are prioritizing the classic events over these brand new markets that they're also talking about.
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Chapter 7: What are the implications of the Olympics on the PGA Tour schedule?
Right. It's like last year, this year, like you could keep a, you know, an oppo field just to keep those guys warm. Right.
That's where I think the, uh, where I think a lot of that. Yeah.
the corn fairy events are going to pop up opposite a lot of these events that are going to include a lot of quote pga tour or track two players again like the nomenclature is going to change i think you got to get rid of the corn fairy like the corn fairy torch just like you just lop off the top half of that and that becomes track two events along with yeah i think that i think you're i think you're right
So after Valspar, again, Cadillac is not a fan of that event. This sucks, man. It was bleak.
Just a complete, yeah, just a big, cumbersome mess here.
Not a good golf course either, but it is under contract through 2030. So we have to find a spot for it. We are, again, staying in Florida for the month of March. That one is going to conclude on March 27th. So March looks like Bay Hill players, then a break with Valspar, then to Cadillac. Those are the four weeks that we spend in Florida. We know what's coming up here in April.
I really wanted a better lead-in to the Masters. I wanted to move Eastlake. Or even go back to Sugarloaf or something. Have the Atlanta lead into the Masters, which maybe we can talk about that for 29.
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?
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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Chapter 8: How do match play events enhance the PGA Tour experience?
Yeah. Sold, Sully. Let's move on. Zurich is under contract for quite some time. And this is the spot that we have at April 24. I think you can make an argument. Again, in a in a different world where you are playing a signature event right before the Masters, you
could do zurich right after the masters and bump heritage back a week um but for connectivity purposes of of keeping that you know easy augusta to hilton head travel um and kind of more on the traditional dates we have zurich ending april 24th which breaks again breaks up that possibility of three in a row uh again rick's gonna get crushed you got 120 guys that i mean i guess not all 120 are going to play the masters right you've only got say 70 playing the masters
but even still right now it's like we have what the deep how many signature events do we have now eight or something plus the masters and or plus the majors and the players and all that it's like if you're taking that from eight to 15, 14, like that.
This is exactly the kind of thing where if I'm Matt Fitzpatrick, I'm like, oh, well, obviously I'm like, I'm not playing that because I'm playing this Atlanta event. I'm playing this Chicago. My brother already has his car. Yeah. Right. So it's like, yeah, I think we might need to rework the Zurich team concept yet again, but we'll leave that for a separate episode.
We'll do a whole, that episode is going to be on TC's channel. We'll do a whole, a whole separate episode on that.
Again, we're getting some dream schedules. I want to open up a world where the team events, the President's Cup and the Ryder Cup, are played in the summer. I want to open up that discussion at some point.
Where are you putting those?
We'll find a spot, TC. We'll find a spot, and I don't think those need to be postseason events. If the U.S. wants to win them, I don't think they need to be taking five weeks off before they play that one.
um after zurich we are now into the month of uh we end on the month uh of on may 1st with a new signature event uh because i don't think you can call it the tour championship i think this is again east lake was just redone um southern company coca-cola they seem quite interested in golf they were willing to float an event in atlanta in the summer which has just been complete mayhem.
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