The 2024 season on the PGA Tour will look very different to anything that has gone before. In a bid to keep its star players playing on the world’s biggest tour and away from LIV Golf, the PGA Tour has overhauled how its schedule will look and play, starting next season.
PGA Tour 2024: Eight Designated Events
These began life as Elevated Events, and this year, there are 17 tournaments that will have an average purse of $20m. So, think LIV, but with more events.
This year, the players are permitted to miss one of these, but next year, there will be eight Designated Events along with the big weeks of the year on the tour; the four majors, the three FedEx Cup play-off events, and The Players. The players don’t need to play in all 16 events, or any of them for that matter, but they do need to satisfy the usual 15 tournaments a year to keep their card.
These Designated Events include the season-opening Sentry Tournament of Champions, where the field will be expanded to the top 50 on the FedEx Cup points, along with the usual tournament winners from this year. Then there’s the Genesis Invitational (Riviera), Arnold Palmer Invitational (Bay Hill), and Memorial (Muirfield Village). The other four are still to be decided but are expected to be locked in and not rotated as was previously thought.
No cut events & small fields
The key point here is that the eight Designated Events will not have a cut, so the star names will be on show for all four days. Needless to say, this has caught most of the headlines, but the likelihood is that it will make very little difference to anything.
The fields will have between 70-80 players. Commissioner Jay Monahan claims that keeping the fields at these sizes allows them to make the field sizes at the full-field events just as strong, if not stronger.
How to qualify?
Here’s the big one—how do you get a slice of the very financially-rewarding pie?
The top 50 in the FedEx Cup standings, or those who make it to the second play-off event at the BMW Championship, will make up the majority of the 70 to 80-man field. So there will be huge interest at the bottom end of things later this year at Olympia Fields to see who can squeeze into that top 50.
Then, there will be a system that rewards more recent play—which makes sense and is to be applauded. Here, the top 10 on the latest FedEx Cup standings, who are not otherwise exempt, will be eligible.
Then, the top five on the most recent non-designated events, between the 16 events, which will be spaced out more, will make it in. The plan is to have at least two non-designated events, and often three between them, and the top players will likely play in some of these to suit their schedule—as well as play in events where they’ve had previous success, or on courses they’re fond of.
That takes us to 65, and the field will be boosted by those in the top 30 in the world, current winners of PGA Tour events (not the opposite-event winners) and four sponsor invites.
What about Tiger?
You would imagine if he needs an invite, he’s in. The four sponsors’ invites will be fascinating to follow to see where they go.
The FedEx Points
This is how it’s been suggested that they might work next year, which demonstrates making it into the Designated Events an absolute must.
- 750 points to winners of The Players and Majors
- 700 points to winners of Designated Events
- 500 points to winners of regular events
- 300 points to winners of opposite events
- 2000 points to the winner of the first two play-off events
The Player Impact Program
This year, $100m will be spread out over 20 players. Next year that will be halved with $50m going to 10 players, with the other $50 million being redirected into the FedEx Cup bonus pool and the Comcast Business Tour bonus pool. The latter is for the top 10 performers during the regular season, so before the play-offs get underway.
The Season
The PGA Tour is returning to a calendar-year schedule in 2024 and will finish at the Tour Championship as usual. That means the events after that will be made up of players trying to secure their privileges, by making it into the top 125 players, for the 2025 season.
The Strategic Alliance
We’ve heard precious little about the alliance with the DP World Tour since it was unveiled. As it stands, we have the co-sanctioned Scottish Open along with the crossover opportunities at the Barracuda and Barbasol Championships.
Commissioner Jay Monahan claims that they are working on ‘commercial opportunities’. Rory McIlroy had one bright thought about the possibility of the Designated Events spreading their wings:
“The Scottish Open is obviously a co-sanctioned event now, which is a big step forward. There are a few obvious ones that stick out that you could try to incorporate into more of a world tour schedule—more so than it just being purely DP World, purely PGA Tour, and trying to combine the two a little bit.”
What we do know is that there will be 10 tickets to the PGA Tour for the leading finishers on this year’s Race to Dubai, and hopefully, some fairytale endings for some of those who make it Stateside.
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