Breaking Down the PGA Tour's New Structure
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What is the new competitive structure of the PGA Tour?
I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset. And when I find my ball in a fried egg, fried egg, the dreaded fried egg, fried egg, fried egg, fried egg, fried egg, fried egg lie, I'm about ready to run off the golf course.
Welcome back to the Friday Golf Podcast. I'm your host, Andy Johnson. Today, I am joined by Joseph LaMagna, and we will be breaking down the big news in the golf world. This broke last week, shortly after we released our podcast, Breaking Down the U.S. Open with Trevor Immelman. The PGA Tour has announced a new competitive structure. So you might ask, what does that mean? You may have already, you know... known about this. You may have heard about this. But anyways, the PGA Tour will be kind of shaking up the structure of their tournaments. Really, I think, formalizing the direction that they are going in. And these changes will be made for the 2028 season. So Joseph and I are going to bat around kind of the news of the month post-US Open.
which is going to be this new competitive structure for the PGA Tour. And we're going to talk about the things we really like about it, maybe some questions that we have. I think a big note here is that not everything has been finalized, but we have a lot to chew on here with what was announced by Brian Rolap and Tiger Woods a week ago, really, a couple days ago, a week ago, the announcement came out. So before we dive in and kind of talk nitty gritty, I wanted to go through a quick rundown of everything that was announced so that everybody kind of jumps into this conversation with a... Understanding of what we're talking about. So this new competitive structure for the PGA Tour is a new two-tier system.
So there will be a top tier on the PGA Tour. And the way I would think about this is an expanded version of what they have right now with their signature events. These big, big-time championships with the top players in the world. there will be 130 players eligible for the championship series. These will be the top 130 players, ideally in the professional game. Obviously, there's some live considerations, but I think their goal is to generally get the top 130 players. They'd expect a weekly field to be around 120 players with a minimum of a $20 million purse. It pays well right now to be a very good player. Important notes here. Every tournament will have a cut to the top 65 in ties at these championship events.
There will be no spots for alternates or sponsors exemptions. So if there's 130 players exempt, 122 sign up, that's how many players are in the field. If there's 118, they aren't going to try and add to get to 120. So this is going to be a very strict... set of players that will be playing to retain their card. This series will be 23 to 24 events, and that includes the players, the four majors. So already there, you're down to 19, and then the Ryder Cup or President's Cup. So the season will run from February to August, and there will be roughly... 18 or 17 PGA Tour Championship Series events, the players and the majors. So that will be what the calendar looks like. It'll be a sprint from February to August.
Now, these guys, what they will be playing for on the Championship Series is The big number here is roughly 90. It sounds like the top 90 will retain their card for sure. You'll be gold if you finish in the top 90 of that 130-player bracket. And there will be promotion, strict promotion and relegation. Like I said at the beginning, there are no sponsors exemptions. So if a player like, you know, who's been on the bubble in recent years, you know, you remember Justin Thomas falling short of the top 70, Ricky Fowler missing the playoffs. So if you had a situation where a player of that ilk or a Tony Finau or a Jordan Spieth fell outside the top 90. If they don't qualify, and we'll get into how they could still earn their card, if they don't qualify, they are out.
They will not be able to get into these championship series events, no matter how popular you are, based off of the no exemption, the no sponsor exemption, no alternates kind of setup.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the new competitive structure of the PGA Tour?
0:00–8:17
2
How will promotion and relegation work in the PGA Tour's new model?
8:17–15:10
3
What are the potential challenges of the new PGA Tour structure?
15:10–22:37
4
How does the new Championship Series differ from the Challenger Series?
22:37–31:43
5
What impact will the new structure have on player opportunities?
31:43–41:49
6
How will the PGA Tour handle player injuries and exemptions?
41:49–51:37
7
What are the implications of the new playoff format?
51:37–1:00:59
8
What are the overall reactions to the PGA Tour's new changes?
1:00:59–1:22:19
Speakers
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