NASSAU, Bahamas – It wasn’t quite the “Delaware 20” that met at the 2022 BMW Championship and restructured the PGA Tour to its current signature-event structure, but it may end up being just as significant.
On Tuesday night, new PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp and Tiger Woods met with the 20-man field at the Hero World Challenge at Albany Club and laid out the foundation of the plan to grow the PGA Tour to new heights. Among those in attendance was Jordan Spieth, who previously served as a player director on the board.
“Brian and Tiger did a great job answering questions on stuff. It seemed they were laying out how they plan on making our product better, like the different categories to do so, and you could tell they have a little further down the line than what they’ve told us, but they’re giving us kind of (a rough sketch),” Spieth told Golfweek. “They’re still a lot of things in consideration, so they’re gonna try to make sure they get it right, and then they’re gonna pass it down to (the Player Advisory Council) to pass it back up (to the board of directors), make sure everybody’s happy, and they’re using the networks and partners that we have on the media side now and some potential new players and asking them how to make it better as well as our sponsors, and that should be a good representation of what the fans want, too.”
A source that attended the meeting told Golfweek it lasted about 90 minutes and included a presentation by Rolapp and Woods, who is a board director and also serving as chair of the Future Competitions Committee. Woods on Tuesday hinted at the changes coming during his press conference. He pointed out that the committee had met three times and had listened to its various stakeholders – from fans to sponsors to tournament directors and media partners. Now, it’s time to let the players in on what could be coming as soon as 2027. [Rolapp also met with players last month at the 120-man World Wide Technology Championship.] Spieth said he’s confident its a plan that should appeal to players at all levels of the game and not just the tour elite.
“He was adamant about pointing out that,” Spieth said. “This doesn’t mean that we’re going to make it more exclusive or less opportunities at all. We’re gonna fine tune what we have and the eligibility side of things as well because he thinks it’s a little confusing at the end of the (FedEx Cup) season to (FedEx Cup Fall), like, we want to make it just a little more easier for the fan to understand, like, who’s going to be at, what events.”
“We’re trying to give the fans the best product we possibly can, and if we’re able to give the fans the best product we can, I think we can make the players who have equity in the Tour, we can give them more of that. So the financial windfall could be fantastic for everyone who’s involved,” Woods said.
With Rolapp previously emphasizing the importance of scarcity, there have already been rumors of the Tour reducing the number of tournaments and possibly waiting until after the Super Bowl to kick off the season. How that will play out is still being baked. World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler said he met with Rolapp late in the season and was impressed with the new boss.
“I’m excited about some of the changes they’re looking to make. Obviously, right now nothing’s set, and I think right now they just have kind of some loose ideas of things that they’re looking at,” he said.
Asked about what he’d consider to be the perfect schedule, Scheffler didn’t articulate a particular number of events he preferred or the best order for the various swings.
“I like being able to have a little bit of freedom in the way I play tournaments. That’s something that I think is an advantage to our Tour, I definitely enjoy that part of it,” Scheffler said. “But at the end of the day, I’m going to play where the best players are playing. I love competition, I love playing against the best players, so wherever those guys are playing that’s probably where you’re going to see me.”
Woods said there still is some heavy-lifting to be done – including a decision whether to “rip the Band-Aid off, create a whole new product, or do it in stages,” he said. “It’s up to us at the committee to try to put it all together and try to make it work and keep the players informed of what possibly could happen. And we want their opinions as well. We’re being very transparent with all of this. That’s something that we’ve been very adamant and I’ve been very adamant before about this process is the transparency side of it. This is something that’s going to be fantastic for all of the fans, for the players. As I said, it could be a financial windfall for everyone.”
One thing seems sure: Rolapp wasn’t exaggerating when he said in August that he intended the changes to be significant. Expect the Tour to look very different in the coming years.
