Proposed PGA Tour model includes 2 tracks of tournaments

DUBLIN, Ohio — A proposed future PGA Tour model that might take effect in 2028 would include two tracks of tournaments with players competing to remain on the top track and golfers in the lower track fighting to move up the next season.

Details of the model are still being discussed with the Future Competition Committee and Player Advisory Council, but PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp said Wednesday there’s momentum to announce changes later this summer.

The PGA Tour’s policy board would have to approve changes.

“I wasn’t sure what our expectations were because I knew what we were tackling was significant and felt that it was important to start the conversation and tackle it,” Rolapp said Wednesday at Muirfield Village Golf Club.

“There’s all sorts of questions. It looks like it’s more ’28 just because of the complexity of not only the competitive model, but also the commercial things you need to do to actually put a new competitive model in place. So I feel good where we are, but I also had expectations that it wasn’t going to be easy.”

The proposed Track One might include 15 to 18 tour events, plus the four majors and Players Championship. There are eight signature events this season.

The Golf Channel reported Wednesday that those events would include fields of 120 to 130 golfers. Most of those tournaments are expected to include 36-hole cuts. Rolapp declined to give a specific field size, but said it will “be sizable, a good number.”

The top 90 golfers in the seasonlong points standings would retain their Track One status the next season.

Golfers competing in Track Two would be fighting to be elevated to Track One the next season. There would be about 20 to 30 spots available per season, not including 10 golfers who would join the PGA Tour from the DP World Tour.

“At the end of the day, sports is about how good the athletes are and what the competitive consequences are,” Rolapp said. “I think we have lost a lot of that with the smaller fields, no-cut events. The competitive meritocracy that makes this sport great and unique is what we’ve gotten away from [and is what] we’re getting back to.”

The tour is still working out whether golfers from Track Two could be promoted to Track One during the season. Golfers on the top track would be prohibited from dropping down to events in Track Two, although that hasn’t been finalized.

The policy board, which would have to approve the changes, is expected to vote June 22 before the Travelers Championship in Cromwell, Conn.

Eighteen-time major champion Jack Nicklaus, the host of this week’s Memorial Tournament, expressed concerns about there being too many signature events bunched together on the current schedule.

The tour is attempting to include open weeks before majors and The Players in future seasons. It also hopes to avoid playing three consecutive weeks.

“I don’t want to comment on the tour’s schedule because I’m not exactly in favor of what they’re doing right now,” Nicklaus said. “I want to sit down with Brian and [former PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan] and have that conversation. I hate to see tournaments bunched too much together with too many big tournaments too close together. That’s a problem, I think, and I think that’s going to be a problem for the tour in the future.”