Now that the PGA Tour’s offseason is complete – it lasted a full two weeks – it’s time to start over again but with a twist.
The Fortinet Championship, which begins Thursday in Napa, California, is the first event in the final wraparound season as the PGA Tour begins transitioning to its new money-stuffed and streamlined model.
It was less than a month ago that commissioner Jay Monahan unveiled the concept of “elevated events” and reducing the number of players who qualify for the FedEx Cup playoffs, and some of the details are still being ironed out.
Nevertheless, the changes begin now, softly at first then more pronounced as the season unfolds.
To recap the most significant changes:
- There will be 12 “elevated” events in 2023, eight of which already have been identified and another four that are expected to be designated in the next month or so. With purses ranging from $15 million (the Sentry Tournament of Champions) to $25 million (the Players Championship), the events have the commitment of the tour’s top players to tee it up in each one.
- Only 70 players – down from 125 – will qualify for the three-event FedEx Cup playoffs, which will be played next summer at TPC Southwind in Memphis, Olympia Fields outside Chicago and East Lake in Atlanta. The reduced number is in part to push more competition through the season and further reward the best players.
- There will be different ways for players to earn their tour cards, some old, some new. Gone is the 25-and-25 system used through the Korn Ferry Tour in which the top 25 in the regular season and the top 25 in the final series earned cards. The top 30 Korn Ferry players will graduate to the PGA Tour now, while the KFT finals have been replaced by a series of events with increased purses to cap the season. Q-school will return in the fall, offering five spots to players who didn’t finish among the KFT top 30 or were not among the top 10 finishers (among those not otherwise qualified) on the DP World Tour.
- In 2024, the PGA Tour will revert to a calendar season, with the bulk of the action happening from January through August.
“I think this is the tip of the iceberg in a way where things are getting started in the right direction with a plan going forward,” Jordan Spieth said at the Tour Championship. “I think overall every single member will benefit from this, and I think the tour as a whole will.”
Some level of change was coming to the PGA Tour regardless, but the disruptive arrival of LIV Golf pushed a more aggressive response from the tour, leading to the concept of elevated events driven in large part by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy.
By getting the top 20 players based on the Player Impact Program to agree to play 12 events (so far, it’s the Sentry Tournament of Champions, Genesis Invitational, Bay Hill Invitational, Memorial Tournament, WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play and the three FedEx Cup playoff events) plus the Players and the four major championships brings the best together more often.
Under consideration is the idea of expanding the number of elevated events to 15 in 2024, with the top players committing to play at least 12 of those.
At the Tour Championship, McIlroy explained it this way:
“I think if you’re trying to sell a product to TV and to sponsors and to try to get as many eyeballs on professional golf as possible, you need to at least let people know what they’re tuning in for.
“When I tune in to a Tampa Bay Buccaneers game, I expect to see Tom Brady throw a football. When I tune in to a Formula 1 race, I expect to see Lewis Hamilton in a car.”
Next week, it’s the Presidents Cup at Quail Hollow Club, and that’s likely to be the last time Scottie Scheffler, Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth, Xander Schauffele, Sam Burns, Collin Morikawa and their teammates will be in the same place until Kapalua in January.
For the moment, things will proceed as they have in recent autumns when most of the top players take an extended break as football takes its annual hold on the nation’s sports watching.
Max Homa heads the field in Napa, having emerged as one of the tour’s new stars over the past year. Rickie Fowler, having split with swing coach John Tillery to return to Butch Harmon, begins another year chasing his old form while a handful of Presidents Cup participants tee it up at Silverado Country Club.
Next week, it’s the Presidents Cup at Quail Hollow Club, and that’s likely to be the last time Scottie Scheffler, Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth, Xander Schauffele, Sam Burns, Collin Morikawa and their teammates will be in the same place until Kapalua in January (though several will play Tiger Woods’ Hero World Challenge in December).
This is the time for KFT graduates and others to make their mark because playing opportunities could be tougher to come by next year, especially as some elevated events are expected to shrink the size of their fields.
Perhaps it’s fitting that the tour season begins in California’s famous wine country.
An ideal spot to raise a glass to a new beginning.