The PGA Tour is taking a big swing on the future of its postseason with the league announcing a move to a reimagined Tour Championship that uses a match-play format.
The massive shift will begin in 2028.
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As part of the changes, the PGA Tour will conduct the PGA Tour Championship Series Finale to determine the season-long points winner.
It will consist of a 72-hole, stroke-play event that will feature a field of 90 players.
The event will help determine several factors, including the season-long points list, which players retain their cards for the next season, and it will crown a season-long champ.
It will also help to set the field for the 32 golfers that will participate in the Tour Championship.
“I think one of the issues with the [current] Tour Championship was that I don’t think anyone really felt that it was culminating in crowning the best golfer in the world,” PGA Tour commissioner Brian Rolapp told ESPN.
“I feel like calling it the playoffs was almost doing it a disservice because it was just a separate competition.
“I think we’ve established how you determine the best golfer in the world, and then we’ve established a really great competition in a format that fans want to see that is just a different set of skills over a period of time.”
DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES – NOVEMBER 16: Rory McIlroy has been critical of the most recent iteration of the post season.Source: Getty Images
The Tour Championship will take on a bit of a similar look to the World Cup as the first week will be a three-round, group stage competition that will split the 32 golfers into eight groups of four.
The top two players from each group will move on to the second week, with a playoff being used to break any ties at the end of the group stage.
The advancing golfers will then compete in a match-play style bracket to decide the Tour Championship winner.
Golf legend Tiger Woods applauded the changes.
“The conclusion of the season should be worthy of the journey it takes to get there,” Woods, the chairman of the PGA Tour Future Competitions Committee, said on social media.
“Today’s announcement is a result of the hard work and passion of our players. Excited to usher in a new era of match play on the [PGA Tour].”
The new format will mark the first time that the Tour will use match play in its postseason.
The PGA Tour said as part of its announcement that the Tour Championship will rotate annually among a number of prestigious venues that will include courses that are not traditionally featured on the modern Tour.
The PGA Tour is going through several massive changes in the years to come, which also include the move to a Championship and Challenger Series format.
The Championship Series will house the elite players of the PGA Tour while the Challenger Series will act as a secondary, developmental tier.
Meanwhile, Rolapp revealed that the PGA currently has no plans to offer LIV Golf stars like Bryson DeChambeau, Cameron Smith and Jon Rahm a pathway back from the struggling breakaway tour.
Launched in 2022, LIV caused shockwaves in the golf world as it spent billions of dollars luring top players away from the traditional PGA, but its survival is now deeply uncertain.
Having lost their Saudi investors, LIV organisers have promised a slimmed-down “2.0” version next year with new investors, but several key players have been linked with exits.
Will Cameron Smith attempt to get back onto the PGA Tour?Source: Getty Images
While the PGA Tour offered a temporary path back for some LIV players — five-time major winner Brooks Koepka in January tookadvantage, paying financial penalties — no repeats are planned, said Rolapp.
“Currently there’s no current plans for Returning Member Program like you saw earlier this year,” Rolapp said while announcing the Tour Championship facelift.
The PGA has banned LIV players from its events, insisting any player wishing to return must first entirely cut ties with LIV.
“Accountability and discipline are essential to any organisation, and certainly for the integrity of the TOUR and for the game,” he said.
Rolapp said it was impossible to speculate on if and how other LIV players could one day return to the PGA because “I don’tknow the future of LIV.”
“We’ve been consistent. Anyone who’s interested in coming to the PGA TOUR needs to demonstrate that they are relieved of their contractual commitments or any tail obligations they might have in that legacy model,” he said.
“Brooks certainly did that, and until then, we weren’t really able to consider anything seriously. I would say the same thing here.”
LIV organisers have vowed to return next year with a slimmed-down schedule, smaller prizes and new investors.
Speaking at LIV’s season-ending Indianapolis event Sunday, DeChambeau said he was “proud” of what the tour has achieved, and said he had “great thoughts about what could happen next year.”
But on Monday he published an enigmatic post on Instagram — photos of several LIV victories, with the caption “It was a good run.”