PGA Tour Announces Reworked 2023 Fall Schedule
The PGA Tour announced Wednesday its revamped fall schedule that will include seven events and allow for players who finish outside of the top 50 in FedEx Cup points a chance to improve their position for the following year.
A change was coming due to the Tour’s previously announced plans to revert to a calendar-year schedule that will see the Sentry Tournament of Champions in Hawaii become the first official event of the 2024 season, which will conclude with the Tour Championship in August.
The fall events—there were nine in 2023—were a next piece of the process to be vetted.
The Fortinet Championship in Napa, Calif., (Sept. 14-17) will kick off the fall schedule, followed by two off weeks, one for the Ryder Cup. The schedule will resume with the Sanderson Farms Championship, the Shriners Children’s Open, the Zozo Championship in Japan, the World Wide Technology Championship, the Butterfield Bermuda Open and the RSM Classic.
The Tour said that the Houston Open, which has been played in the fall since 2019, will be moved to the spring as part of the 2024 season. Most speculation has centered around the event taking the spot vacated by the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play. The WGC-HSBC Champions, not played since 2019 in China, is also off the schedule, effectively ending the World Golf Championship concept. The CJ Cup, which Rory McIlroy won in October, is also gone from the fall schedule.
The top 70 players this year through the Wyndham Championship are effectively set for the 2024 season but the seven fall events will allow anyone outside of the top 50 to improve their position. Standard FedEx points will be awarded (500 to the winner) at all the events and those who are 51st and beyond will keep their total from the year.
That means someone from outside of the top 125 can play their way into exempt status, while someone who is inside the top 125 could fall out.
The Tour will also maintain the FedEx points to determine 10 players who will be eligible for the first two designated events of 2024 following the Sentry Tournament of Champions. The top 10 players on that final list that includes fall tournaments, if they're not otherwise eligible, will earn their spots in the two designated events, still to be determined.
Players who win in the fall will receive the standard two-year exemption, entry into the Sentry as well as the Masters and other perks that go to PGA Tour winners. Those not previously eligible can play their way into the Players Championship.
Other ways to earn status on the PGA Tour for 2024 outside of finishing among the top 125 or winning on the PGA Tour are via the top 10 finishers, not otherwise exempt on the DP World Tour; the top 30 from the final Korn Ferry Tour points list; and the top five finishers from the final stage of the 2023 PGA Tour Q-School—which will be a first since 2012.