The PGA Tour’s playoffs may finally be saved.
Tour CEO Brian Rolapp mentioned the possibility of a change back in March at The Players Championship but we now have confirmation that match play is coming to the Tour Championship along with exciting news about potential new venues.
We wrote about what match play might look like in the Tour’s playoffs and that speculation will have to continue. While Rolapp and the PGA Tour confirmed that match play would be introduced in the 2028 postseason, we still have no idea what the format will be.
The announcement also teased even more surprising news. East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta will no longer host the Tour Championship annually starting in 2028, ending a partnership that lasted more than 20 years. Instead, the Tour plans to rotate courses for the season-ending event including “prestigious courses” the Tour has never visited before.
Rolapp plans to unveil more information in August during this season’s playoffs.
The Tour Championship is about to look completely different
There have been some fantastic moments at East Lake for the Tour Championship throughout the years. Tiger Woods taking home the trophy in 2018 for his first victory in more than five years is one of the most iconic golf moments of this century, with thousands of fans lining the fairways behind him in an improbable comeback.
But starting in 2028, I don’t think you’ll be seeing any scenes like that one.
Based on the press release and some of the quotes we’ve seen since Rolapp spoke before the Travelers Championship, the Tour may be moving toward a more made-for-TV format for the Tour Championship.
That could have its perks.
Many people, myself included, aren’t the biggest fans of the Tour schedule, especially once we move past Florida each season. The courses are fairly uninspiring. But much of that can be attributed to courses not wanting to give up their tee times during prime weeks in spring and summer when their members want to play.
A made-for-TV style event would solve that problem. Without the need for infrastructure to support 100-plus players and tens of thousands of fans, courses wouldn’t need to shut down for as long and they also wouldn’t take as much of a beating.
That would be much more attractive for prestigious courses that have been uninterested in hosting Tour events, but have been willing to hold much smaller events—for example, Seminole Golf Club, Pine Valley Golf Club and Cypress Point Club.
Seminole and Cypress Point were the two most recent hosts of the Walker Cup, the amateur version of the Ryder Cup.
What will made-for-TV mean?
Those courses would be more likely to host this type of event because the made-for-TV style means tickets will likely be limited. Instead of the 40,000 fans coming in every day for four days, you may only see a few thousand lining the fairways.
That’s a boost for course selection. Part of the challenge of finding courses to host big events is that the courses already have the infrastructure to handle them. Places like Bandon Dunes, Cypress Point and Pine Valley simply don’t have the space or surrounding infrastructure to handle 200,000 fans for a week. But limit that number to 2,000 fans at most and suddenly it makes more sense.
And given the match play nature of the event, course length or difficulty doesn’t factor into course selection. This further opens the door for classic courses to host.
Some people think these exclusive, prestigious courses don’t want any publicity at all from hosting a tournament but that’s not always the case. They just need it at the right scale.
So, you may ask, how bad will the atmosphere be in this hypothetical?
Probably not bad at all. We could see as few as eight to 16 players showing up for this new event. With only a few matches out at a time, there should still be plenty of fans lined up in the fairways to watch each hole.
This new format would be a much more intimate setting. The Tour could even screen fans coming in, possibly prohibit phones, and ensure the crowds are proper and in line, closer to the atmosphere we see at the Masters, although not to that scale. The Tour would ideally focus on the event’s coverage and production, an issue that many of us at home have been complaining about for years.
What would be some dream courses for the Tour Championship rotation?
I’m glad you asked.
- Chambers Bay, Washington: Host of the 2015 U.S. Open, the USGA struggled to give Chambers Bay the love it deserved. They lost the greens and much was made of how the course and location couldn’t handle the infrastructure needs of a U.S. Open. No problem for the new Tour Championship, then. Chambers Bay is a phenomenal course with incredible views and its layout is perfect for match-play golf, featuring some entertaining holes. The greens were fixed years ago.
- Pine Valley, New Jersey: Maybe a long shot still but Pine Valley is hosting the 2044 Walker Cup. One of the most mysterious courses in the U.S., due to just how private it has remained, Pine Valley would make incredible television and be the biggest beneficiary of limited fans.
- Cypress Point, California: It may be the most beautiful golf course on the planet. Cypress Point was one of the courses used in the rotation for the Pebble Beach Pro-Am until 1990.
- Sand Hills, Nebraska. This Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw design is one of the most unbelievable in the country. It would never work for a big tournament but the views and golf for a small match-play event could be unmatched.
- Bandon Dunes, Oregon: Take your choice on which course at Bandon Dunes although I’ll take Pacific Dunes for the views. Bandon Dunes recently hosted the U.S. Amateur and would surely be a perfect choice for the new-look Tour Championship.
- Peachtree Golf Club, Georgia: The PGA Tour can have its own Augusta National. Located north of Atlanta, Peachtree was another Bobby Jones design as he tried to replicate the feeling of Augusta National closer to Metro Atlanta. It has the same tall Georgia pines and is one of the toughest courses in the country.
- Sleepy Hollow, New York: One of the coolest courses in the U.S., Sleepy Hollow features the work of the legendary C.B. Macdonald with some of the wildest green complexes you’ll ever see. It would be incredibly entertaining match play.
- Pete Dye Golf Club, West Virginia: This is an insane course located on an active coal mine. We don’t get to see enough tournament golf in the mountains and this Pete Dye design combines great views with Dye’s usual risk-reward golf that is perfect for match play.
- Pasatiempo, California: One of the best public courses in the country, Pasatiempo is widely known but has only hosted amateur USGA events and college tournaments. It would be a very popular host with so many people having the pleasure of playing it over the years.
- Merion, Pennsylvania: Just tune into the U.S. Amateur this August to see why Merion would be a great choice. It’s the exact intimate setting I have in mind for this new format and it would certainly challenge the best in the world in match play. It will host the U.S. Open in 2030, though.
Where would you like to see the Tour Championship played? Let me know in the comments.
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