Tiger Woods didn’t mince words about Brian Rolapp’s vision for the PGA Tour at the Hero World Challenge last week.
“There’s going to be some eggs that are spilled and crushed and broken, but I think that in the end we’re going to have a product that is far better than what we have now, for everyone involved,” Woods said.
The 15-time major champion is leading the Future Competition Committee’s efforts to reshape the Tour schedule using Rolapp’s guiding principles of “parity, scarcity and simplicity.” The committee—which includes Patrick Cantlay, Adam Scott, Camilo Villegas, Maverick McNealy, Keith Mitchell, and business advisors—has been evaluating countless scheduling models. Sources indicate “scarcity” is the primary focus, suggesting the current 38-event schedule (excluding fall tournaments) is headed for a significant reduction.
The goal? Trim the Tour lineup to about 25 events played in the biggest markets on iconic courses with the strongest fields.
“We started with a blank slate—what would the best product we can possibly create, what would it look like?” Woods explained. “You take a white sheet of paper and you start throwing ideas out there, and there’s like a thousand ideas on this board. Then you add in all the people that we interviewed and what would they like to see and you throw all those up there.”
While Woods has his eye on implementing changes by 2027, 2028 seems more realistic. Players across the Tour have already begun crafting their own ideal schedules.
“I’m going to give you tournaments and then I’m going to give you venues,” Billy Horschel said when asked about his version of a new schedule.
Most player-created schedules start after the Super Bowl and end before Labor Day—avoiding football’s shadow. Based on player input and the committee’s stated goals, here’s what a 2028 PGA Tour schedule might look like:
A Potential 2028 PGA Tour Schedule
- WM Phoenix Open – Feb. 17-20
“Because of the weather, you’re going to start with Scottsdale. It may not be the best venue but it’s the most eyeballs,” Horschel said. “I think we should start the week after the Super Bowl [scheduled for Feb. 13 in 2028]. Even though it’s always been the same week, I think you still get a bigger number [of fans].”
And then?
“There’s no other venue you’d want to go to because of the weather that time of year out west,” Horschel added, “so you go to Florida.”
- Miami Championship – Feb. 24-27
“You could start [the season] at Doral, make it like the Daytona 500, sort of the granddaddy big tournament, but Phoenix would work as well,” Ryan Palmer said.
- Arnold Palmer Invitational – March 2-5
- The Players Championship – March 9-12
- Week off – March 16-19
Much of the committee’s discussion has focused on playing in major markets and on iconic courses. Austin, which hosted the Tour’s match play event from 2016 to 2023, would be a popular spring option both geographically and from a market perspective. There’s also talk of relocating existing tournaments to larger markets—the John Deere Classic moving from Silvis, Illinois, to Chicago, or the Travelers Championship shifting from Cromwell, Connecticut, to New York or Boston.
“We need to go to the biggest markets—right now we are in five of the 30 biggest markets [in the United States]; we need to make it 12 to 15. A third of our events need to be in the biggest markets,” Horschel explained. “Then you’re going to have iconic venues that may not be in the biggest markets—Hilton Head, Pebble.”
- Austin event – March 23-26
- Houston Open – March 30-April 2
- Masters – April 6-9
- Week off – April 13-16
Many players and media partners support scheduling off weeks after majors.
- RBC Heritage – April 20-23
- Atlanta event – April 27-30
- Truist Championship – May 4-7
- Charles Schwab Challenge – May 11-14
- PGA Championship – May 18-21
- Week off – May 25-28
- Memorial – June 1-4
- RBC Canadian Open – June 8-11
- U.S. Open – June 15-18
- Week off – June 22-25
The lead-in to the 2028 Open Championship gets complicated by the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, with the Men’s Golf Competition at Riviera Country Club scheduled for July 19-22 and the new Mixed Team event on July 23-24. The R&A is shifting its major from mid-July to the first week of August to accommodate.
- Travelers Championship – June 29-July 2
- Denver event – July 6-9
- John Deere Classic – July 13-16
- Week off – July 20-23
- Scottish Open – July 27-30
Some players might make the trek across eight time zones for the Scottish Open, while others could head early to the Open Championship site to acclimate.
- Open Championship – Aug. 3-6
- Week off – Aug. 10-13
The postseason would see the most dramatic changes. This is where a West Coast swing could shine, with better August weather than February offers. The venues would add prestige too:
- Playoff (Pebble Beach) – Aug. 17-20
- Playoff (Riviera) – Aug. 24-27
- Playoff (Tour Championship) – Aug. 31-Sept. 3
Reimagining the playoffs comes with complications. The Tour has long-standing relationships with FedEx—which sponsors the season-long points race and the Memphis playoff event in FedEx’s headquarters city—and East Lake, which has hosted the Tour Championship since 2004.
Getting Pebble Beach to host in August would be economically challenging for the resort.
“In a perfect world, we’d go play Pebble at this time of year [late summer], but we don’t have carte blanche to say where we go because most of these are private clubs or resorts like Pebble Beach, and if I’m Pebble Beach, you want that week [in August] for people who pay money to play golf,” Brian Harman said. “It’s super complicated. Of course we’d love to play Pebble in August, but so would everyone else on the planet.”
According to Woods, there are countless schedule options that adhere to Rolapp’s vision of “scarcity.” But even if the committee connects all the dots for a 2028 rollout, there will be pushback from players who’ve already seen playing opportunities reduced by signature events.
“Before LIV, it seemed to be a schedule that worked pretty well. Guys could pick and choose where they wanted to [play],” Tom Hoge said. “Events had roughly the same stature throughout the season.”
“You go back to Tiger and Phil [Mickelson], they very rarely played the same events other than WGCs or majors, but they sort of carried those events they chose to play. That model seemed to work pretty good. The beauty of playing the PGA Tour is if you want to take a month off you can, and if you want to play four weeks in a row you can. I don’t love this idea of a reduced schedule.”
There’s also talk that trimmed events could create a secondary tier of tournaments and a platform for promotion and relegation. But that doesn’t convince everyone that “less is more” benefits both the bottom line and the sport.
“This is not growing the game of golf,” Palmer said. “I’m having a hard time seeing how this grows the game.”
Convincing the Tour’s “middle class” and numerous partners will likely be harder than creating the actual schedule, but those involved believe Rolapp’s vision is the right path forward.
“The hard part is there isn’t a decision that ever gets made that there aren’t winners and losers. That’s the universe, push one way and you get pushed the other way,” said Harman, a Player Advisory Council member. “It feels like we’re on to something, like it’s got a little momentum. We’re trying to get more eyeballs on golf. We’re trying to get more people to have an appointment for the week to sit down and watch golf.”
