More adjustments are coming to the PGA Tour’s schedule in 2024.
The Tour introduced a number of adjustments to eight designated occasions subsequent season, which embody smaller fields and no cuts.
“These smaller, Designated event fields will not only deliver substantial, can’t-miss tournaments to our fans at important intervals throughout the season, but they will also enhance the quality of Full-Field events,” Tour commissioner Jay Monahan stated in a memo on Wednesday. “Together, this approach provides a schedule that is cohesive, compelling, consequential and with clarity for fans, players and sponsors alike.”
The new Designated Event Model contains 16 complete occasions, although half of these are the 4 main championships, The Players Championship and the three occasions that make up the FedExCup Playoffs. Those occasions will preserve their traditional 36-hole cuts and discipline sizes. The remaining eight designated occasions haven’t but been decided, however they are going to function not more than 80 golfers, haven’t any minimize and elevated purses and factors.
It will likely be attainable to play your means into a chosen occasion, too. Golfers in any other case ineligible who sit inside the highest 10 within the present FedExCup standings or win a event in that season will earn a spot within the designated occasions.
“There’s ways to play into it. It’s trying to get the top guys versus the hot guys, right?” Rory McIlroy stated Wednesday forward of this week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational. “I think that creates a really compelling product, but a way that you don’t have to wait an entire year for your good play to then get an opportunity. That opportunity presents itself straight away.
“You play well for two or three weeks, you’re in a designated event. You know then if you keep playing well you stay in them.”
The full qualification system for designated occasions contains:
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Top 50 gamers from final season’s FedExCup standings
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Top 10 gamers from present FedExCup standings
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Top 5 gamers, not presently eligible, incomes most FedExCup factors in tournaments between designated occasions
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Current yr event winners which might be in any other case ineligible
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Tour members within the Official World Golf Ranking prime 30
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Four sponsor exemptions
The designated occasion mannequin is one thing that the Tour launched this season, which got here amid its battle with LIV Golf, which is a rival tour that launched final yr with a key promoting level being no cuts for any tournaments. LIV Golf responded on Twitter on Wednesday. The controversial Saudi Arabian-backed league would not have any cuts.
Lee Westwood was fast to criticize the Tour’s adjustments, too, which profit the PGA Tour however not the DP World Tour (previously the European Tour).
The “Strategic Alliance” is in reference to the DP World Tour, which the Tour reached a partnership with final yr within the wake of LIV’s problem.
This yr, the PGA Tour has 17 complete designated occasions, together with the 4 majors and the FedExCup Playoffs. Outside of an elevated purse and an additional 50 FedExCup factors, nonetheless, the occasions are largely the identical.
They have drawn a lot stronger fields than in recent times, nonetheless, which has made for very entertaining golf early within the season. Jon Rahm, the present top-ranked golfer on the planet, has gained two of the three designated occasions held up to now this season. Scottie Scheffler gained the opposite, which briefly put him again at No. 1 within the Official World Golf Rankings earlier than Rahm overtook him.
Those two and McIlroy are within the discipline this week at Bay Hill Club for the Arnold Palmer — the fourth designated occasion of the season — which ought to create one other battle for the highest spot.
The designated occasions for 2024 haven’t but been finalized, however the purpose is to unfold them out considerably evenly all year long. The full schedule, which is altering again to a calendar-year schedule, will likely be revealed “at a later date.”
“I think it’s exciting because you’re going to have the top guys in the world playing against each other more often,” Scheffler stated Wednesday. “You’re going to be able to guarantee the sponsors that those guys are going to be there four days.
“If you’re coming out to an event to watch on Saturday and Sunday and, you know, if I’m imagining myself as a kid I would like to get out there early. Let’s say I’m having a bad week, some kid can come out and watch me play early in the day and you can guarantee that Rory McIlroy’s going to be there on Sunday, Jon Rahm’s going to be there on Sunday. I think that’s a lot of value added to TV and for sponsors.”
