Ryder Cupper teases interesting PGA Tour changes: ‘We’ll see’
What will the “new” PGA Tour look like?
Golf fans have been asking this question for years, three, four or more, ever since the arrival of LIV sent the entire professional golf ecosystem into disarray. When the PGA Tour launched its new limited-field, high-stakes signature event format for the 2023 season, we got an answer: The format has grown every year since. But the arrival of new CEO Brian Rolapp this summer put everyone on notice that bigger, more substantial changes were coming. He appointed Tiger Woods as chairman of the future competition committee and described what was to come in no uncertain terms:
“Our goal is not incremental change,” Rolap said in August. “The goal is significant change.”
What would that look like? We’ll see. We’ll look for clues. We got the news on Wednesday, when Harris English — the highest-ranked player at this week’s RSM Classic, the final event of the 2025 Tour season — teased out a version of what “big changes” might mean.
“We’ve got some smart people at the helm. Now Brian Rohlup comes in and he looks at the PGA Tour in a different light,” English said. That’s a near-unanimous sentiment about Lollap, with everyone on the PGA Tour describing him as “impressive.” (Perhaps it’s because they both love football, and because Lollop’s former employer, the NFL, is a behemoth. That’s the subtext: If Lollop’s leadership is good enough for them, it’ll be good enough for the tournament.)
But this is where things get interesting:
“Sometimes change is good,” English said. “I know they want all their best players to play together more often, and the discussion about the tour potentially starting after the Super Bowl I think is a very good thing because we can’t really compete with football. So we’ll see where that goes.”
Starting after the Super Bowl! This would indeed be news. Sources familiar with tour discussions said nothing is set in stone, but it’s clear the structure of the season is on the table. English’s proposed schedule does contain one red flag – the WM Phoenix Open is traditionally held in the same week as the big tournament and is the most well-attended event on the tour; they certainly won’t move That? But his point is valid. The PGA Tour has been doing its best to avoid the NFL schedule to avoid Sunday games. It seems logical that the NFL’s offseason would be mid-tournament season.
So what will that season look like? English said the signature event model will likely undergo another massive revision, or face being phased out entirely.
“I think that’s something they’re probably going to change in the future, maybe in 2027, where all events are equal and there’s no longer eight high-level events and regular events. They’re going to have 20, 22 identical events,” he said. “I think it’s a good model. Where you see all the top players competing in every event because you really can’t afford to take off one of them.”
English’s proposal would solve the tour’s biggest branding problem: Currently, it’s difficult to define the difference between signature events and regular full-field events when they are both considered PGA Tour events. It is easier to describe significance if there are fewer events.
English wanted to make one thing clear, though: He’s grateful to be able to play with any or all of them.
“For senior events, I love – even if they’re not senior events, I’ll probably play in all of them. I’ve been doing it for a long time,” he said. “Really, Pebble Beach is the only one in my career where I haven’t played a long stretch of time on the schedule. I love playing on the West Coast. I love starting out there and playing a lot of games there and getting your season off to a good start. We’ll see where it goes. I think they’re going to go more where 20 games are the same, all the points, all the money, everything is the same.”
The tea leaves on the Tour are difficult to read with complete clarity. Despite Rolup’s talk of scarcity, his tour is adding two new fall events in the coming years, complete with new venues and new sponsors. There are some unanswered questions about the future of Hawaii as part of the schedule; English expressed regret that this year’s tour won’t be in Kapalua, where they typically begin the calendar season, and he would be sad to see the Hawaii Swing disappear, or lose other venues like Torrey Pines, or even fall events. On paper, canceling the tournament sounds like a logical move. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have consequences.
“Tournaments like this, I don’t want to see them go away because I know how important they are to this community. For a lot of the fall events, we go to a lot of places in the country and they don’t have a lot of golf tournaments where you tap into a different fan base. I really don’t want to see them go away, but I think they’ll find a time and a place to host some of these tournaments,” he said.
English, 36, is used to tinkering on tour. While some things haven’t changed – this is his 14th appearance at RSM – a lot of other things have not. He has witnessed the constant changes in points, prize money, schedules, structures and awards. His message here is again clear: Wherever they tell me I can play, I’m going to play wherever. Change may be for the best.
“When you look at other leagues they’re all very competitive and what you did two or three years ago doesn’t make any sense today,” he said. “The NFL keeps cutting people. We have a lot of competition here, but if it makes our product better, gets more fans to the games, gets more fans out here to the games, then I’m all for it.”
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