Predicting What The Revamped PGA Tour Schedule Will Look Like

The PGA Tour schedule could be in for a big shakeup. 

New CEO Brian Rolapp, along with several notable players, has signaled the need for fewer and more impactful events within a revamped schedule. 

That likely means taking an axe to the status quo by doing away with certain aspects of history in exchange for a more entertaining product.

Count me as someone in favor of these moves.

While the prospect of eliminating events that have been around for many decades is tough to swallow, the schedule has been bloated for way too long.

As it stands, golf fans don’t have space to miss the Tour. It’s constantly going.

The new schedule—which is likely to be gradually implemented over multiple seasons—will have room for bye weeks. Every tournament will have higher stakes because bad fields like we see this week at the Cognizant Classic won’t really exist.

There will be space to miss golf. And there will be more incentive for fans to rally around the top tournaments.

What are the priorities for the new schedule?

Based on talking points from Rolapp and other players, we can make some assumptions about what the schedule will look like in the future.

• Cutting tournaments from 35-ish to 23-ish, not including the fall.

• Eliminating signature events by essentially making everything between February and August a signature event.

• Not competing with football season. The Tour does not want to go up against the NFL and college football. They have already taken care of this on the back end with the FedEx Cup ending before Labor Day. Now they are probably going to do the same on the front end, either starting their season after the Super Bowl or trying to avoid it.

• Breathing room after majors. Rather than rushing into the RBC Heritage, Travelers Championship or another event immediately after a major week, the Tour would take a break.

• Having a more balanced schedule. The traditional Tour calendar starts hot from Phoenix to Augusta and then becomes more of a slog from late April to late August. Some tournaments could see a date change because of this. “Owning the summer” is a primary talking point.

• Visiting bigger markets. The Tour is missing stops in places like New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington D.C. and Chicago. Those cities are all top-10 media markets in the U.S. Yes, the Tour used to be in these areas more—and the majors are frequent visitors to these places—but the current schedule pretty much ignores the largest markets. That will almost certainly change.

We’re talking balance, scarcity and making each event pop.

Predicting what the revamped schedule will look like

Speaking at the Genesis Invitational, event host Tiger Woods hinted that schedule changes likely won’t take full effect until 2028 and beyond.

That doesn’t mean there won’t be some changes in 2027 but not everything will be perfectly buttoned up for next season.

So let’s just say we are taking a look toward what the “finished product” will be in terms of schedule, whenever that time comes. I’ll use 2027 dates just to clearly make my point.

Here is my sketch of the possible schedule. Below, I will go into more detail about why I believe this schedule could be close to what actually happens.

Explaining the schedule prediction

We’ll start at the top where I believe the raucous WM Phoenix Open is the probable starter for the Tour season. This gets the season off with a literal bang.

Gone are the days of the Phoenix Open going into a playoff as the Super Bowl has already kicked off—the tournament will begin a week before the Super Bowl.

There is a lot of speculation that the tournament wouldn’t start until after the Super Bowl but there is no football in that first weekend of February (and starting a little earlier can open up breathing room for the rest of the schedule).

While there is talk of pushing Pebble Beach to the summer—and the resort has hosted U.S. Opens in the summer before—I think this is unlikely on an annual basis. That’s a lot of lost income. Perhaps Pebble gets incorporated into the Tour Championship every few years on a rotating basis (more on that in a moment).

For now, I have the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am remaining in February, the week after the Super Bowl.

The Florida Swing will get transformed as the three marquee tournaments at Doral, Bay Hill and TPC Sawgrass will be the fixtures of March in back-to-back-to-back weeks.

Then we are taking a bye week after the Players Championship. There will also be bye weeks following the Masters, PGA Championship, U.S. Open and Open Championship.

The lead-in to the Masters is harder to predict. Going up north isn’t an option yet. This is normally where we would see the Houston Open and Texas Open. Some have also predicted a return to Austin, although the Tour is already heading there for the Good Good Championship in the fall.

As it stands, there are too many Texas events so I’m going to cut some.

I like moving a new Atlanta event at East Lake to this slot, creating a Georgia swing. This opens up the Tour Championship for different hosts (which is desperately needed) while still maintaining Atlanta on the schedule.

After the Masters and a bye week, we head to the RBC Heritage at Harbour Town. It’s a classic Tour venue and a great location at Hilton Head for this time of the year.

I’m partial to heading to the Truist Championship at Quail Hollow in late April, followed by a Texas swing of the Valero Texas Open (San Antonio) and the Charles Schwab Challenge (Fort Worth). The PGA Championship (held in Dallas in 2027 and 2034) will also complete that swing some years.

The Memorial, like the Arnold Palmer, is a must-keep because it’s Jack’s event. I also really like the Canadian Open staying on the calendar (and RBC is a critical sponsor for the Tour).

This takes us to the U.S. Open and another bye week.

In the heat of the summer, I am thinking we start visiting some of those bigger markets I mentioned.

That starts with the Travelers Championship which will move from Hartford to Boston. It continues the following week as the John Deere Classic transitions from the Quad Cities to Chicago.

This takes care of hitting two of the largest markets that are missing.

After the Genesis Scottish Open, Open Championship and a bye week, we are headed down the stretch with four events remaining—three of them being the FedEx Cup playoffs.

There are a lot of options in the regular season finale spot but I think the Tour has ignored the Denver area for too long. It would be nice to hit another big market.

To give the playoffs some added weight, I love moving the Genesis Invitational at Riviera from February to August. This will be complicated/impossible for 2028 because of the Olympics (where Riv is a host) but I love the idea.

I don’t love the FedEx St. Jude Classic at this time of the year but I’m guessing the Tour has to have a FedEx event in the playoffs given how critical a sponsor they are.

Then, for the Tour Championship, I’m strongly in favor of moving this event around. This is where the Tour can reach New York, Philadelphia or even places like Seattle that have been completely abandoned.

I also just want to state for the record that I prefer the PGA Championship in August because it spreads out the majors more. I don’t see this changing because of the Olympics but it’s something to chew on.

This is a just a rough outline but …

I would be way more excited to watch the Tour if this was the schedule.

You’ll notice the absence of certain tournaments. Where is Torrey Pines?

Perhaps a course like Torrey could be on the rotating list of Tour Championship venues. I don’t think we need to see it every year because it’s vastly overrated.

In this schedule model, some tournaments will either be axed, moved to the fall, relegated to the Korn Ferry Tour or take on some lower-tier status.

It’s tough to see that but a leaner schedule is absolutely the way to go.

What do you think? Let me know below in the comments.

Top Photo Caption: The PGA Tour schedule is in for a big shakeup. (GETTY IMAGES/Tracy Wilcox)