PGA Tour Schedule, Format, Eligibility Changes

[saevel25]

PGA Tour: Major schedule changes approved, no cuts in elevated events

---

The PGA Tour board on Tuesday night ratified a radical new approach for the 2024 schedule, Golfweek...

 

[DeadMan]

GolfWeek just release an article that outlines the changes the PGA Tour is making in 2024:

PGA Tour: Major schedule changes approved, no cuts in elevated events

---

The PGA Tour board on Tuesday night ratified a radical new approach for the 2024 schedule, Golfweek has confirmed.

The designated events will be no cut, with around 70 players. Here's the qualifying criteria they're looking at:

Quote

Fields at designated events will be comprised of the top 50 players who qualify for the BMW Championship during the previous season’s FedEx Cup playoffs, plus the top 10 players not otherwise eligible on the current FedEx Cup points race. There will also be five places earned through performance in non-designated events. . . . 

Other qualification criteria will include consideration of the Official World Golf Ranking, most likely with a focus on the top 30. That is intended to accommodate a top player who may be returning from injury and otherwise ineligible for designated events. Sponsor exemptions will also remain in use, though with more defined parameters on who is eligible to receive one. Such exemptions are a controversial feature of designated events, but that free pass also represents the most obvious way to ensure Tiger Woods can play any event he wishes to.

I'm torn on this set up. Part of me feels like they're copying the WGCs. The WGCs (with the exception of the match play) were really bad events by the time they died out. Also, I don't really care about the 50th ranked player on the FedEx Cup. Last year, that was  Christiaan Bezuidenhout; in 2021 that was Lee Westwood; in 2019 it was Keith Mitchell. On the other hand, there won't be the dregs of the bottom of the WGC fields. And if all the top players have to show up, it will probably be a good event. Having multiple ways for players to get into these events is good, too. If you win on tour, you're in. If you play well in the events leading up to the designated events, you're in. I think that's good to preserve meritocracy, which is missing from LIV.

[DeadMan]

If it’s really just 5-6 events like this, they are recreating WGCs.

That said, sounds like there’s still a lot of details to be worked out. And the tour seems a little behind the eight ball here. 

[Friz]

 

I haven't been here much the last couple months as my golf life takes a hiatus in winter, but this is the sort of significant news to jump start it again.  

16 events will be considered "elevated" - 4 Majors, PLAYERS appear to remain as full field, and the playoff events in an unchanged format, so 8 total other events look to be the reduced fields and no cuts.  One of these will be tournament of champions, so 7 new events will be reduced field and no cut.

[klineka]

1 hour ago, DeadMan said:

And if all the top players have to show up, it will probably be a good event.

Sounds like that's not the case though per the tweet @Friz shared. 

I think that's unfortunate and those designated events should be mandatory for the top X number of players. 

Players in other sports don't get to pick and choose their schedule and when they play. I get that there is player funded travel and other things to consider in golf and that it's not quite the same as other sports, but I don't think the tour mandating that the top players play in a minimum of 16 events is too much to ask, especially since for the players we are talking about here financial considerations of getting from tournament to tournament isn't as big of a deal.

 

[iacas]

52 minutes ago, DeadMan said:

If it’s really just 5-6 events like this, they are recreating WGCs.

Not if they're already events like playoffs, TOC, etc. Those already existed alongside the WGCs, so not quite the same.

7 minutes ago, klineka said:

I think that's unfortunate and those designated events should be mandatory for the top X number of players.

I think they'll play most of them, because otherwise, they could fall out pretty easily, AND because they realize they need to play against the other good players more often. Plus, if there are just… let's say 10 of them, what are they gonna do… skip one of those to play a regular PGA Tour event?

I think we should steal Joel Dahmen's thing and start calling the big purse events the PGA Tour, and the other events the PGB Tour.

[Friz]

it sounds like anyone eligible should be sufficiently motivated to be there without being required though.  Giant purses plus no cuts equals a guaranteed pay day and guaranteed FedEx Cup points.

If anything, my concern would be that the guys not eligible for these events are going to be falling behind in the season long points race, have a harder time finishing top 50, and it could be a lot harder for someone outside that 50 to break into it year after year.  Hopefully there will still be a good balance to ward against that.

[iacas]

25 minutes ago, Friz said:

it sounds like anyone eligible should be sufficiently motivated to be there without being required though.  Giant purses plus no cuts equals a guaranteed pay day and guaranteed FedEx Cup points.

If anything, my concern would be that the guys not eligible for these events are going to be falling behind in the season long points race, have a harder time finishing top 50, and it could be a lot harder for someone outside that 50 to break into it year after year.  Hopefully there will still be a good balance to ward against that.

You could get in to one of the later season ones, though, and play well enough in the final few that you bump an under-performing previous-top-50 guy out.

Plus, this makes the line between #50 and #51 WAY more meaningful than the line between 125 and 126 ever was.

[klineka]

17 hours ago, Friz said:

If anything, my concern would be that the guys not eligible for these events are going to be falling behind in the season long points race, have a harder time finishing top 50, and it could be a lot harder for someone outside that 50 to break into it year after year.  Hopefully there will still be a good balance to ward against that.

The solution to that is simple, play better.

If someone is playing well in the "regular" events over the course of the entire season they are going to end up getting into the elevated events while accumulating quite a few FedEx cup points along the way from the "regular" events

[rocket23]

Clearly I’m biased. But not having Tiger competing in our state EVER. Is a detriment to our pga event. And as an ambassador of the sport I’m general he should of at least shown up at the very least once. Now that he is basically hobbled and is very limited in where he will play I feel he will never play the travelers now. Had this been in place a decade or so ago we might of had a chance to see him. But we have a packed field this year. And I will be in attendance for sure. 

[cutchemist42]

I do like many elements of this change but I felt the focus on the higher ranked players was needed years ago when most of the podcasts were advocating for it.

I do think this creates a quasi minor league within your main league, and i will care even less about watching minor events now, similar to how I handle my tennis watching now.

At the same time, I hope they fix the problem WGC events suffer form, and I really hope they heavily incentivize the point structures so the bottom of 60-70 still has a reason to play and not phone it in.

I'm also now not sure how I feel about the OWGR rankings for events like these.

 

 

[iacas]

12 hours ago, rocket23 said:

Clearly I’m biased. But not having Tiger competing in our state EVER. Is a detriment to our pga event. And as an ambassador of the sport I’m general he should of at least shown up at the very least once.

No to that.

[Aguirre]

So long as there is a clear and not highly difficult path to a player getting into the eligible status, I'm fine with it. Like, I just don't want some 42 year old who last had success seven years prior still getting in because of his accumulation of points/money/WGR, etc. because they can keep cashing and accumulating points because they are simply in these fields.

[iacas]

PGA Tour Player Advisory Council voting on eligibility changes

---

Changes in eligibility could reshape the Tour as we know it.

I'm glad they may be reducing it to 100.

[SG11118]

Will be interesting to see what comes of this.  Everyone likes the concept of the best players playing competitively against each other more often.  However, they need to have mechanisms in place to replace the "best players" who are no longer the best players with players who are better. 

I don't like limited field No-Cut events with guaranteed money and guaranteed Fed Ex points.  Quite often, these tournaments end up very uninteresting to watch.  Events with an intermediate cut generally result in a better and more entertaining golf product, while also giving up-and-coming players opportunities to prove themselves better than the best players.

[phan52]

Spieth, Thomas and Day all out for East Lake. The President's Cup will probably have a decidedly different lineup this year.  

[phan52]

3 hours ago, phan52 said:

Spieth, Thomas and Day all out for East Lake.

oops! I see that Justin Thomas has snuck into the top 30 because of Alex Noren's late meltdown.