The PGA Tour’s schedule is set to look completely different in 2028.
CEO Brian Rolapp plans to reduce the schedule to 20 events, including major championships and the playoffs, in the hope of getting the best players on the tour to play against each other more often.
Currently, the tour is short on details about what that would look like, but Rolapp said he hopes to have a more detailed structure to announce at this year’s Travelers Championship in late June.
He’s in conversations with sponsors, tour officials, and players to plan a schedule that works for everyone, and the process is proving complex. There are conflicting requests from each party, making it impossible to build a schedule that meets everyone’s ideal needs.
The Golf Channel’s Rex Hoggard reveals what some players have asked for, which shows just how difficult this process is for the tour.
PGA Tour players request ‘all-star break’ in the middle of the new schedule
Rolapp has targeted the Travelers Championship to bring more details of the new schedule to light, but Hoggard is unconvinced he will have much more to say. That’s because of the conflicting requests he’s had from different parties. One of these requests is to add an “All-Star break” in the middle of the season.
Speaking on the Golf Channel Podcast with Rex and Lav, Hoggard explained, “When you talk to players who are in on these meetings, the competition committee meetings, and trying to figure out what the new product is going to look like, there is a general theme that’s emerging. They don’t particularly want to play more than three weeks in a row.
“They want to be able to take the week after a major championship off. Look, this changes from player to player, but I think most of the consensus is landed on the week after a major championship, and they want to try to find somewhere in the middle of the season.
“And the way it was told to me yesterday by one player, maybe an all-star break kind of concept where you have a three-week break, actually, and I go, that all sounds fantastic.
“I think you have too many round pegs to fit into the puzzle. You don’t have enough weeks in this window, and it seems as if Brian Rolap wants to do all of that. And I think that’s going to be where the negotiations are back and forth.
I think ever since the Players Championship and Brian Rolap referenced that by the Travelers Championship, he wants to see some sort of progress. At least in my mind, I’m thinking to myself, what is the hangup? Like, where are we stumbling here?
It seems to me getting from point A to point B should be a little bit easier than this. But now you start getting into the details. And we’re going to talk about this week’s field and the tier two issue that the tour is going to have going forward.
“But this is a big one as well because I asked one player, ‘Do you want the week before a major or the week after a major off?’ And he kind of shrugged, and he goes, ‘Sometimes I want it before, sometimes I want it after.’ There is no perfect formula on this. And this was one player that couldn’t even figure it out in his own mind.
“So you start seeing how complicated this is going to be for Rolapp and his team to get this done. And I don’t know, I’m not a gambling person, but you start looking ahead to the Travelers Championship, which isn’t that far away, and you start to wonder, is there really going to be something significant that comes out of that board meeting?”
Justin Thomas explains why he doesn’t want to play four events in a row
Justin Thomas shared his take on the PGA Tour schedule before playing the Charles Schwab Challenge and explained to reporters why he does not like to play more than three events in a row.
He said that it’s a far too taxing schedule for him, explaining, “Everybody’s different. I would say the most, the first and foremost, most important thing that a lot of the top guys, a lot of, anybody that’s in the majors, you’re going to at least I would think, is what’s going to prepare me the best for the major.
“So like I’ve had success in majors when I play the week before. But playing San Antonio the week before the Masters for me doesn’t feel like that’s getting me prepared as much as possible for the Masters. Therefore, I don’t play San Antonio.
“I had a year where the PGA, when it was at Southern Hills I wanted to play the week before Byron Nelson, it’s easy travel, and I played the week before. So it’s very situational of when you play, don’t play in that regard.
“But I mean I really, really, really try with all my might to not do four in a row, four in a row is like I’m not fun to be around. It’s very taxing. So I try to cap it at three. And, yeah, there’s a lot of great tournaments, we’re very fortunate to have to miss some great events, but you have to at some point. So just kind of start with the majors and fill it in here and there, I guess.”
So a priority for Rolapp must be to avoid putting players in a position where there are four big events in a row and they have to decide which to skip. Otherwise, the point of the new schedule will be rendered useless.
