Why the Super Bowl may be about to influence the PGA Tour schedule – and there’s also talk of scrapping the Signature Events…
When new PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp created the Future Competitions Committee in August, he wasn’t interested in what might happen. He was interested in what will happen.
“The goal is not incremental change,” he declared at the time. “The goal is significant change.”
The committee – which is made up of chairman Tiger Woods, co-chairmen Maverick McNealy and Keith Mitchell, player directors Patrick Cantlay, Adam Scott and Camilo Villegas, and board members from PGA Tour Enterprises and the Fenway Sports Group – have apparently met just once, and they’re already setting their sights high.
And Harris English has the scoop.
Speaking ahead of the RSM Classic at Sea Island, where the World No.11 is the highest-ranked player in the field, English said that one of the talking points was moving the PGA Tour schedule so it doesn’t clash with the NFL season, which ends with the Super Bowl in early February.
By that point, the PGA Tour season is usually several tournaments deep – including the two events in Hawaii before the West Coast Swing of The American Express and Farmers Insurance Open.
In recent years, the Super Bowl has fallen on the same day as the final round of the WM Phoenix Open at TPC Scottsdale – one of the PGA Tour’s most popular stops.
“The Tour has changed a lot since I first came on back in 2012,” English said. “It’s going to keep
evolving. We’ve got some smart guys at the helm now, with Brian Rolapp coming in, and he’s
seeing the PGA Tour in a different light.”
Rolapp, of course, joined the PGA Tour from the NFL, so he knows better than anyone just how much that day can dominate even the most casual sports fan’s life.
“Sometimes change is good,” English added. “And talk of the Tour potentially starting after the Super Bowl is a pretty good thing because we can’t really compete with football.”
But English has a particular affection for those early-season events. He won The Sentry – which won’t be played on the 2026 schedule – four years ago, and will go to Torrey Pines in January as the defending champion.
“All the players are bummed that we’re not going back to Kapalua,” he explained. “It’s one of our favorite events, a fun start to the year, bring the family out there, it’s very relaxed, and then kind of roll into Sony. Waialae’s an awesome course.
“So it would kind of stink if those tournaments go away and it would change up that West Coast Swing.”
English is also getting word that the limited-field, huge-purse Signature Events may be scrapped.
“I get that they want all the best players playing together more often, and I think that’s what they’re going to change down the road,” he explained, adding that the plan from 2027 is to “have all the tournaments be equal and not have the eight elevated events and the regular events” and instead “have 20, 22 events that are all the same”.
He continued: I think that’s a good model to have. That’s where you’ll see all the top players play every single event because you can’t really afford to take one off.”
Whatever happens, English is happy that the right people are in place to make the best decisions for players at both ends of the PGA Tour membership.
“I’m putting my faith in the guys at the helm and having the direction of this tour to make it the best it can be,” he concluded.
