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Name drops today: Norman Xiong, Jordan Spieth, Chambers Bay.
Listen, is the schedule laid out below ever going to be implemented? Absolutely not.
Also though … if the schedule schedule below was somehow implemented, would a great way to travel to all of these events — including a hickory tournament at Bandon and a year-end match play at Pebble — be with your OGIO gear?
Absolutely yes.
The Renegade Vault luggage collection is my favorite piece of travel gear I’ve ever owned, and OGIO is the best at making a premium version of items that carry the stuff you actually care about (like, say, your Turtlebox Ranger or Garmin watch).
OK, now onto the news.
I was recently inspired by three different pieces of content as it relates to my dream PGA Tour schedule.
1. This Fried Egg podcast where they discussed what a 2027 PGA Tour schedule could look like.
2. This Brentley Romine article from last fall about how the golf schedule could (and maybe should) look more like tennis.
3. This extraordinary schedule proposal from 1977.
I have been hollering for a more enjoyable and global schedule for at least a decade now, and thought that with how much this will be discussed next week at the PLAYERS, now would be a good time to drop what I would love to see it look like going forward.
Here are the parameters around this schedule.
1. It has to be at least somewhat feasible (you can’t go to Bandon every week).
2. It can’t devastate the current media rights deal, which is close to $1B annually.
3. Sponsor exemptions? Gone.
4. Year-end playoffs? Also gone.
We’re blowing up anything deemed unnecessary and rebooting the system. All the events that don’t make my Tour 1000 list (the top non-major tier) will be kept but relegated to a lower tier (see below).
A note on fields and levels: I think some version of Brentley’s plan should be implemented. The TL;DR on his article — which is rooted in tennis’ structure — is as follows.
You receive points for winning or playing well at different levels. The higher the level (i.e. majors), the more points you get.
Slam winners get 2,000 points.
Small tournaments offer as few as 15 points to winners.
Your ranking is based on your 19 best performances in a given year.
As your ranking gets better, you qualify for better tournaments.
The Tour sort of has all of this already with the FedEx Cup and Aon 5 and Aon 10 or whatever they’re called, but it’s incredibly confusing. And the biggest difference between tennis and golf is that KFT players can’t play their way into the big PGA Tour events in a given year. That’s not the case in tennis.
I also like that tennis designates events ATP 1000 or ATP 500 so you know what’s at stake. The Tour has changed names of its big events — signature, elevated etc. — so many times that I not only don’t know what’s at stake, I don’t even know what they’re called anymore.
So think about future golf events in this system roughly as follows …
Tour 125 events — Current PGA Tour Americas and KFT
Tour 250 — Mostly Euro Tour KFT
Tour 500 — Bad PGA Tour events (3M etc.) and some Euro Tour
Tour 1000 — Great PGA Tour events (API, Riviera) and a couple of Euro Tour
Tour 2000 — Majors (throw the Players in there if you want)
There is also a real opportunity here to create a more global tour without taking the PGA Tour outside the United States for long stretches. Make European Tour events Tour 250 or Tour 500 tournaments or whatever. Given how much money the Tour has poured into the Euro Tour — they’re funding tournament purses?! — what is the Euro Tour going to do, say no?
The structure for all of this is mostly in place, it just needs to be formalized.
Also … I’m thinking between 100-125 players in my Tour 1000 events (with a cut), and there are unequivocally zero exemptions anywhere. If Spieth doesn’t finish in the top 50 in the rankings at the end of 2026 (all top 50 are exempt into my Tour 1000 events the following year) and can’t play his way into my Tour 1000 events early in 2027, sorry, that’s the beauty of it. Go recapture the magic at the Deere (a Tour 250 event) and play your way into the last four Tour 1000 tournaments of the year.
Tennis’ recent problems include overworking their stars, which is something I want to try and avoid with my schedule. We’re going to limit the Tour 1000 events but keep a lot of tournaments that can be Tour 250 events or Tour 500 events (I’m not going to list all of those but think Valspar, Houston etc.)
Again, this is effectively what already exists. We’re just putting names to it.
The Honda last week was basically a Tour 500 event. Spieth should have been playing in it to see if he could get into the Tour 1000 event at Bay Hill this week (he got a crooked exemption instead), but other than that it looks pretty similar to what it looked like last week. That’s still a pretty good TV product and one that (importantly) will still produce a lot of money for the Tour.
Additionally, there are more easily understood storylines coming out of there.
• Nico Echavarria finished 62 in the rankings last year so he’s not exempt for the Tour 1000 event at Bay Hill next week, but with a win here at the Honda he’s in there.
• Jordan Spieth finished 54th in the rankings last year so he’s not exempt either, and he’s trying to play his way in to these important Tour 1000 tournaments.
• Norman Xiong has played his way into this event with some good play on the Tour 250 events early in the year, let’s see what he can do at a Tour 500 event and see if he can’t get into the Tour 1000 event next week.
This is a more honest version of how the Tour actually works.
In terms of how to force players to play, I think the schedule should be 16-18 Tour 1000 events plus majors and Players (which are Tour 2000) and players get one free skip for the Tour 1000s. After that, you start receiving negative rankings points for missing tournaments and run the risk of finishing outside the top 50 or whatever in the rankings.
Don’t like how much you have to travel and play? Fine, go compete in LIV Hong Kong.
Here’s the slate.
January
Week 1:
Week 2: Australian Open (Tour 1000 event)
Week 3:
Week 4: Hawaii (Tour 1000 event)
Australia is a tough TV sell in the United States — which is where so much of the revenue is — but I think it’s worth it to get an amazing tournament that could really capitalize on the hunger of Australia’s golf fans (this is a huge revenue opportunity that LIV has tested and succeeded in). You also get magnificent golf courses at your disposal that would present a much different test than a lot of the other tracks on your schedule.
The Australia-Hawaii one-two combo as premium primetime/late-night television is a terrific way to start the year for most of the U.S., which is covered in ice and snow in January.
February
Week 1: Phoenix Open (Tour 1000 event)
Week 2: PGA Championship (Tour 2000 event)
Week 3:
Week 4: Riviera (Tour 1000 event)
The PGA needs to either be the first or last major of the year. That needs to be its identity. I think most would prefer it be the last, but I want to end the season with The Open Championship. Keep the PGA on the west coast — go to Torrey or wherever out there — and this is an amazing month of golf with Phoenix-PGA-Riv.
March
Week 1:
Week 2: Honda Classic (Tour 1000 event)
Week 3: API (Tour 1000 event)
Week 4:
Week 5: RBC Heritage (Tour 1000 event)
In my schedule, there aren’t really bad months, but you could argue this as the worst one.
April
Week 1:
Week 2: Masters (Tour 2000 event)
Week 3:
Week 4: Players Championship (Tour 2000 event)
Two majors in the same month! 😏😏😏
I don’t love the Players here, but I don’t know where else to put it. It’s difficult to flip it to May (where I would prefer it) because most of the May events are in cold weather cities that need to be May or later.
May
Week 1:
Week 2: Western Open (Tour 1000 event)
Week 3:
Week 4: Memorial (Tour 1000 event)
Week 5: Travelers Championship (Tour 1000 event)
Memorial and Travelers always rock and present fairly unique challenges for Tour players. The Western is just the current BMW, and you can move it around if you want. Or you can play it at Olympia Fields — which gave us a DJ-Rahm thriller in 2020 and Hovland making eight 3s on the back nine to win — as often as you want.
June
Week 1:
Week 2: Hickory event (move it around to small venues)
Week 3: Amazon Invitational (Tour 1000 event)
Week 4: U.S. Open (Tour 2000 event)
Now we start getting a little weird. KVV had a cool idea in the Fried Egg pod above about how the Tour should go to small venues with fewer players. It would be more made-for-TV than it would be an in-person extravaganza. It’s a compelling thought, but I would add that these events should be played with hickories. Trinity Forest with modern equipment kinda sucks to watch. Same for the Bandons or Tree Farm or whatever. With old school stuff, though? All the way in.
The Amazon Invitational is another borrowed idea from that Fried Egg pod. Give it to Chambers Bay and play it every year. Unique golf course, nothing like it on the PGA Tour and the more west coast primetime golf we get, the better.
July
Week 1:
Week 2: Scottish Open (Tour 1000 event)
Week 3: Irish Open (Tour 1000 event)
Week 4:
Time for our European summer finale. And again, if the American golfers want to complain about a month in Europe with their kids as they make millions playing courses like Royal County Down and Lahinch, I’m sure the R3HAB concert at LIV Singapore is a blast.
August
Week 1: Wentworth (Tour 1000 event)
Week 2: Open Championship (Tour 2000 event)
Week 3:
Week 4: Match Play Finale (Pebble)
An amazing closing kick. Wentworth is great every year, and then you finish with The Open. Two weeks later, after the dust has settled, gather the top 16 on the points list and let them play matches at Pebble to close out the year. Big money, primetime, great venue. This is what tennis does, and while it’s not the biggest thing in the world, it’s a great reward for stars and not as drawn out as the month of FedEx Cup Playoffs.
There are a million things wrong with all of this. A thousand problems I haven’t thought of. A hundred questions that need to be answered. But also … every month absolutely rules, you get a true hierarchy that players can play into (or out of) and you start to form more of the pyramid shape in men’s pro golf that makes sport worth following.
Let me know any thoughts you have and whether you love, hate or meh my schedule.
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