From a Meeting in Delaware, the PGA Tour's New Structure Was Born—But It's Not Universally Loved
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The Delaware meeting the week of the BMW Championship last August led by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy will likely go down as a seismic moment in the changing of the PGA Tour.
It is there where 20-some players got together and hashed out several ideas that they took to PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan and the Tour’s policy board. The sense was these changes, in part in response to LIV Golf, needed to be implemented without delay.
Not only was it a way to thwart LIV Golf, they believed, but also a way to shift the dynamic of the Tour from one that catered to the masses to one that looked out more for the stars.
A week later at the Tour Championship, Monahan outlined a series of changes that resulted in this year’s designated events, with further tweaks on board for next year.
And while that mandate will continue to be debated, there is an argument to be made that if you can’t please all, you have to please those at the top. The stars are the commercial value of the product. Finding the right balance is the challenge, and McIlroy acknowledged at one time it was far more tilted toward the top players.
"The presentation in Delaware was very self-serving for the 20 players in that room," McIlroy said. “We were looking at fields of 50 to 60. We were looking at only 10 players dropping out of that top 50 every year, so a retention rate of 80 percent. The Tour was like, 'look, the typical retention rate for the top 50 has historically been around 60 percent, so let’s try to get back to that number.'
"So the structure that has been rolled out here is vastly different from the one that we all talked about and the guys saw in Delaware, and I think for the betterment of everyone. I think if we had have went down that road, it doesn’t serve the membership anywhere near as well as what this structure does."
McIlroy said the original plan included 14 designated events, which has been dropped to eight, with the majors, Players Championship and the three FedEx Cup playoffs bringing the total number of big tournaments to 16.
"But then there’s still 29 full-field events the rest of the calendar year," McIlroy said.
That doesn’t mean everyone is happy, even though there are more opportunities than originally envisioned.
The problem, of course, is the perpetuating nature of playing in the designated events, which are going to see a FedEx Cup points increase. With no cut, it means every player gets points at each of those eight events. That makes it much more difficult for someone who is not in those tournaments, who is faced with having to make cuts in the other events while playing for fewer points.
PGA Tour veteran Ryan Armour, who is on the PGA Tour’s Player Advisory Council (PAC), told Golf Digest that the new designated events plan goes away from a Tour mandate to create playing opportunities for its members.
"I think what bothers me most about this is that we all were in the same (PAC) meeting in San Diego and there were serious concerns about going forward with this," Armour said. “We talked about the value of full fields, what it means for hospitality, for fans who want to watch golf all day, what the tour experience is all about.
"And then they went forward with it. If this was such a great idea, we should have done it 20 years ago when Tiger was winning everything. These guys aren’t Tiger Woods. None of them are. The current hierarchy on tour ... what makes this generation of 20- and 30-year-olds so special to benefit the most from this?"
The decision appears to be made for 2024. That doesn’t mean it won’t endure more scrutiny.