{"id":259009,"date":"2025-10-29T16:20:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T16:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/259009\/"},"modified":"2025-10-29T16:20:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T16:20:11","slug":"golfs-ability-to-create-stars-is-imperative-no-matter-what-a-new-pga-tour-looks-like","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/259009\/","title":{"rendered":"Golf’s ability to create stars is imperative no matter what a new PGA Tour looks like"},"content":{"rendered":"

Outgoing commissioner Jay Monahan has used a form of this word \u2014 regenerate \u2014 twice in the last two years. It got lost amid topics like private equity investments and a pathway back for LIV Golf players, and even turning over the helm to a new CEO.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s what the PGA Tour can\u2019t afford to lose as it tries to create a bold, new model.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe consistently as an organization regenerate talent and create stars,\u201d Monahan said at The Players Championship in 2024, when negotiations with the Saudi backers of LIV Golf were still ongoing with far more hope for a deal than there is now.<\/p>\n

And then in August at the Tour Championship, where Monahan held his last press conference while introducing Brian Rolapp as the CEO, he mentioned 11 first-time winners on the PGA Tour and paused ever so briefly for emphasis.<\/p>\n

\u201cFurther proof that talent regeneration is alive and well on the PGA Tour,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

That number is now up to 15 first-time PGA Tour winners this year. The latest was Michael Brennan, perhaps the most unlikely of them all.<\/p>\n

The Wake Forest graduate was looking forward to the Korn Ferry Tour after winning three times on the PGA Tour Americas (the equivalent of Double-A baseball) this summer. The big leagues was another year away at best.<\/p>\n

And then he received a sponsor exemption to the Bank of Utah Championship, unleashed his powerful swing and won in his PGA Tour debut as a pro<\/a> to earn a two-year exemption.<\/p>\n

Was a star born?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Family support propels Brennan to Bank of Utah win<\/p>\n

Michael Brennan chats with Todd Lewis about winning the Bank of Utah Championship and earning a spot on the PGA Tour.<\/p>\n

Talent is discovered more than it is created. It needs a little more time and a small dose of context. The stars are in hibernation at the moment. Brennan wasn\u2019t holding off Scottie Scheffler and Xander Schauffele, but Rico Hoey and Pierceson Coody.<\/p>\n

It was no less impressive, and Brennan will now have a bigger stage. He gets into at least one $20 million signature event next year \u2014 the RBC Heritage, replacing Sentry as the portal for winners \u2014 and he has a reasonable chance of finishing the year in the top 50 in the world (he\u2019s at No. 43) to get into the Masters.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all about opportunity, and that\u2019s what the Futures Competition Committee should keep in mind as it figures out what 2027 will look like.<\/p>\n

Rolapp announced this committee in August, and it formally met for the first time last week.<\/p>\n

Tiger Woods is the chairman of a committee that includes five players \u2014 Adam Scott, Patrick Cantlay, Camilo Villegas, Maverick McNealy and Keith Mitchell \u2014 and three business advisors that include progressive thinker Theo Epstein.<\/p>\n

Rolapp got attention when he said, \u201cThe goal is not incremental change. The goal is significant change.\u201d He mentioned a clean sheet of paper, being \u201cas aggressive as we can.\u201d<\/p>\n

The idea is to make every tournament meaningful, and 2026 \u2014 effectively a bridge year \u2014 will feature as many as 46 events. About 30 of those events are more like \u201copportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n

But that opportunity is what generates stars.<\/p>\n

Will a new Tour model include someone like Brennan? Yes, because he played Black Desert on a sponsor\u2019s exemption. Those are still available.<\/p>\n

And there remains a pathway from the Korn Ferry Tour that has produced the likes of Scheffler and Schauffele over the last decade, and players like David Duval and Justin Thomas before them. The best players always find their way. Some get there quicker.<\/p>\n

Brooks Koepka and Jordan Spieth both narrowly missed out at the second stage of Q-School in 2012. Spieth received sponsor exemptions, earned a card and then a trophy, and played in the Presidents Cup a year later. Koepka started on the Challenge Tour in Europe and it took a little longer. But he now has five majors.<\/p>\n

There are indications a new model will cater to the stars in a bid to get them playing against each other more often. That\u2019s what makes meaningful competition. The other word Rolapp used was \u201cscarcity,\u201d when less means more.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not hard to imagine a tour schedule of signature events, along with The Players Championship, four majors and the FedExCup playoffs. That effectively would create two tours, which is not too much different than what exists now.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Bank<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Three events remain in the FedExCup Fall season. Here\u2019s a look at the standings along the top 60 and top 100 cut lines.<\/p>\n

However it looks \u2014 and there is a lot of work ahead for the committee \u2014 the key is to allow for enough movement from the \u201copportunities\u201d to the \u201cmeaningful tournaments\u201d to regenerate.<\/p>\n

That might be the biggest difference between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, and the key issue that kept the Saudi-funded league from being recognized by the Official World Golf Ranking. LIV starts and ends its season with the same 54 players (except for an occasional alternate).<\/p>\n

Chris Gotterup got his opportunity in Myrtle Beach, and then he cashed in by taking down Rory McIlroy a year later in the Scottish Open. There are just as many stories about players making good on their opportunity and not lasting very long against tougher competition.<\/p>\n

Still to be determined are how Brennan and other recent newcomers \u2014 Jake Knapp, Ryan Gerard, Andrew Novak \u2014 will fare against a steady diet of golf\u2019s best players.<\/p>\n

Rolapp is still relatively new to golf after his long tenure at the NFL. But while he is remembered for talking about parity, scarcity and simplicity, he also brought up the most important word in golf \u2014 meritocracy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhatever we do, wherever we end up on a competitive model, let\u2019s just make sure that I can earn my way into it,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd if I earn my way into it, I deserve to be there.\u201d<\/p>\n

For now, Michael Brennan knows the feeling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Outgoing commissioner Jay Monahan has used a form of this word \u2014 regenerate \u2014 twice in the last…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":259010,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":["post-259009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259009\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}