HARTFORD, Conn. — The PGA Tour is getting a revamp in 2028.

The board has approved plans to split the tour into a “Championship Series” and “Challenger Series,” with stark promotion-and-relegation stakes and match play officially built into the playoffs.

On Tuesday, CEO Brian Rolapp announced the landmark changes to the competitive structure and schedule at TPC River Highlands ahead of the Travelers Championship. The new model was approved on Monday by both the PGA Tour Policy Board and Enterprises Board.

The sweeping set of plans is a significant accomplishment in Rolapp’s nearly yearlong tenure as CEO, and many of them represent a reversal of the PGA Tour’s initial response to LIV Golf, the disruptor league currently in turmoil.

At the outset of his tenure, Rolapp set out to remove confusion from the PGA Tour’s season schedule while keeping the best players competing against each other in a meritocratic fashion.

While details are still being ironed out, Monday’s vote of approval and Tuesday’s announcement are the latest indication that Rolapp is closing in on that goal. Here’s what we know so far about the newest version of the PGA Tour.

Goodbye, signature events

Gone are the small-field, no-cut events that made up the majority of the PGA Tour’s signature event schedule, implemented to funnel cash to top players and retain talent in the face of LIV’s Saudi billions.

Beginning in 2028, players will face higher stakes than ever, with aggressive promotion and relegation between two tiers of play.

The PGA Tour’s Championship Series will feature 120-player, 36-hole cut and $20 million purse events. On this top level, there will be 23-24 events a year, including the Players Championship, the four majors, season-ending events and the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup.

The events will have no alternate list, no sponsor exemptions and no Monday qualifying. Because if you are a member of the premier Championship Series, you have earned your spot in these events for the entirety of the season.

The season will stretch from February to August, avoiding the football season almost entirely.

However, the rest of the PGA Tour will play on a lower-tier tour, called the Challenger Series. This series will feature what the tour calls “emerging talent,” as well as players relegated from the Championship Series the year before who hope to fight their way back.

There will be a minimum of 20 events, featuring 144 players, 72 holes, a halfway cut and $4 million purses. That is four times the average purse on the Korn Ferry Tour, the current developmental feeder tour into the PGA Tour. Seven of those 20 events will be hosted on weekends when Championship Series events are not being played, and those tournaments will feature higher stakes due to the additional exposure.

The two series will officially be implemented in 2028, with 2027 acting as a transition year. These changes resulted from the Future Competition Committee’s work, with Tiger Woods serving as chairman. Patrick Cantlay, Maverick McNealy, Keith Mitchell, Adam Scott and Camilo Villegas were the player representatives, joined by three strategic business advisers — Joe Gorder, John Henry and Theo Epstein.

Rory McIlroy expressed skepticism last week about the Challenger Series, referring to it as a “glorified Korn Ferry event.” Rolapp said he and McIlroy have since talked.

“We think we’ve just organized the same tour into a much more interesting and competitive system,” Rolapp said. “If you look at the Challenger Series events, they’ll be at venues you recognize. They’ll be for healthy purses, which we announced today. They’ll include a subset of the same 200 and change players that we have today. That is much different than what the Korn Ferry Tour is today.”

J.T. Poston wins The Memorial in dramatic playoff

In-season movement will be difficult

While there was thought that Rolapp might offer players the opportunity to jump midseason between tours, that prospect will only be available to the highest-achieving players on the Challengers Series. A player who wins twice on that lower level will receive immediate promotion to the Championship Series. Otherwise, you’re fighting for your spot for the whole season.

However, by the completion of the season, there will be significant promotion and relegation. Approximately 90 players will keep their spots on the Championship Series, while 20 players will be promoted from the Challenger Series. The additional 10 spots in the Championship Series events will be reserved for other exemption categories, the details of which are still being worked out. But medical extensions, career milestones and past tournament winners are among the tentative ideas.

Match play is officially coming to the playoffs

The board has voted to implement match play in a season-ending tournament. The full structure and details of those events have yet to be worked out, but the PGA Tour has finally listened to its fans clamoring for a drama-filled match-play finale.

The PGA Tour is also focused on bringing its playoffs to venues that would be brand new to players and fans. Interestingly, the PGA Tour’s announcement on Tuesday featured no mention of FedEx, its longtime sponsor, in relation to the postseason.

The Tour Championship, which has been at East Lake in Atlanta since 2004, will be moved to a rotation of what the tour is calling “prestigious courses.”

The list of possibilities includes Pine Valley and Cypress Point, hailed as the top two golf courses in the United States by Golf.com, and Seminole, which is ranked 17th. The hope is that these private clubs, which have typically closed their doors to PGA Tour events, can be lured in by the promise of a smaller footprint and disruption to the membership.

Tournaments will go to major cities

While the schedule is not finalized, the PGA Tour says it has 10 Championship Series events set for 2028, with five more to be worked out.

Since the beginning of his tenure, Rolapp has preached the need for the PGA Tour to target the largest U.S. sports markets, and the board has now approved plans to do so.

Boston, Denver, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C., are the cities under consideration for the remainder of the Championship Series schedule.

Tommy Fleetwood celebrates winning the 2025 Tour Championship at East Lake in Atlanta. (Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)

Developmental pathways TBD

The PGA Tour’s announcement Tuesday might inadvertently mean the end of the Korn Ferry Tour as we know it. With the Challenger Series acting as the primary pathway to the top tier of the PGA Tour, the developmental tours, including the Korn Ferry Tour and PGA Tour Americas, might look completely different come 2028.

What happens to the fall season?

The fall schedule will be used in two ways: a series of international events for top players and a domestic “last chance” tournament series for those looking to play their way into the PGA Tour Championship. The last-chance series will feature 4-6 events, and the international series will partner with the DP World Tour.

The PGA Tour announced earlier this month that it would be co-sanctioning December’s Australian Open through 2029, and the new fall plans align with that decision.