Arnold Palmer's Grandson Wants the PGA Tour to Make One Big Change

Signature events have been tweaked in recent years, and Sam Saunders believes his grandfather would have ideas to improve the field this week at Bay Hill.

Sam Saunders would like to see the field of signature events expand. | Reinhold Matay-Imagn Images

The PGA Tour has undergone multiple changes in the past few years. Some tweaks have been popular, others not so much. 

The Tour is expected to make additional changes under new CEO Brian Rolapp. On Tuesday Sam Saunders, the grandson of Arnold Palmer, was asked ahead of the Arnold Palmer Invitational if he had thoughts on the API’s reduced field this year. 

“Absolutely,” said Saunders, who has made 159 career Tour starts. “I would love to see more guys here. There’s so many great players. It’s so hard to see some of the names that aren’t here sometimes.”

The PGA Tour implemented its signature event model after the launch of LIV Golf in 2022, which cut the field sizes of such tournaments. The Arnold Palmer Invitational, for example, used to feature 120 players. Now, it’s 72. The Tour wants to have all the top players in the world competing for four full days, but the Arnold Palmer Invitational is one of three signature events with a 36-hole cut (low 50 and ties, plus anyone within 10 shots of the 36-hole leader). 

The smaller fields squeeze lower-tier players out of playing opportunities (although the Puerto Rico Open, an opposite-field event, will be played concurrently with the API, with a 120-player field). 

“I know the Tour has adapted and evolved to the times and we try to be as supportive and a team player as we possibly can,” Saunders said, “so I’m very optimistic and excited about the future and having more guys here, because at the end of the day there’s a hundred guys that have cards on the PGA Tour that make the FedEx Cup playoffs, that it has gotten so competitive and so difficult. 

“And one thing my grandfather loved was, he wanted all the guys, he wanted as many guys as he could to come here and play his golf course and compete and have a real, honest, meaningful competition, and whoever walks away as champion, it should mean a lot to ‘em.”

The new format causes many players to compete in lower-tier tournaments, like last week’s Cognizant Classic, hoping to play their way into the elevated events like the Arnold Palmer Invitational. That has drawn the ire of some, though. 

“[Missing out on starts] already happened with some of the other signature events that I loved, like Pebble and Travelers that were full-field events,” Ben Silverman, the world No. 252, said at the Cognizant Classic. “I know there’s a lot of guys that don’t like [the signature event model], but I’m sure when I’m in the top 80 or top 75 and I have a full schedule of elevated events, I’ll probably be like, ‘Well, I get all the elevated events.’”

The Tour is reportedly looking to reduce the schedule in the coming years, as Rolapp has preached the idea of “scarcity.” And some tournaments, like the Cognizant and others, appear to be on the chopping block. 

Saunders, however, has no direct input on the Tour’s upcoming changes. 

“The Tour runs their business, and we’re a team player, but we run our business here,” he said. “We can only focus on us and what we can do to be the best tournament and give the best presentation that we can. And, yes, I mean, if there’s an opportunity to voice our opinions and our feelings while still being supportive and trying not to jump off the rails on anything, yeah, of course we want to be additive when we can. But really, I think the best thing we can do as an organization is focus on our golf course, our event, you know, what it means to come to the Arnold Palmer Invitational.”

Saunders, amid Rolapp’s revisions, feels his voice will be heard. 

“Yeah, it would be really nice to see [field sizes] evolve and I’m very optimistic that we’ll get back to that place at some point.”

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