So much is changing on the PGA Tour, and yet there remains so much potential.
As the PGA Tour negotiates a deal with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, it has used the opportunity to make significant alterations to its competitive landscape, including adding big-money, limited-field signature events this past season and reducing the number of fully exempt players from 125 to 100 starting next year.
It shouldn’t stop there, either.
While preexisting contracts likely limit some of what the PGA Tour can do, at least in the short term, the PGA Tour cannot be shy in evolving further, especially with the recent infusion of private-equity money – and potentially more from the PIF’s coffers.
Want some ideas? In the spirit of Christmas, here are four more big PGA Tour changes I’m asking Santa for:
1. Reunite the stars
What happens to LIV Golf and its members if a deal is reached?
That is a big question, and the hypothetical answers that have been presented to date create some messy complications.
For one, LIV isn’t going away. The Saudis love team golf, and it’s unlikely they view LIV as a failure, especially since they’ve been able to lure the likes of Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka and Jon Rahm to their tour. It’s also unreasonable to expect the PGA Tour to let those big LIV names cherry-pick a few of its events to play in each year, and it would be a mammoth task for a guy to play full schedules on both tours in their current states, though I wouldn’t put that past Patrick Reed.
My vision to integrate the two tours into one cohesive golf calendar is to turn LIV into an international team series that sits above the PGA Tour and DP World Tour. Players would compete on one of those two tours, and the top players from each would earn the right to compete in the lucrative and exclusive team events.
To do this, LIV would have to reduce its number of events to eight or so, which shouldn’t be an issue for the Saudis if they simply want a prominent seat at the table.
These team competitions would still model LIV’s current format – 54 holes, shotgun starts, four-person teams, individual and team leaderboards – but with PGA Tour players now being able to compete without penalty, there’s opportunity to expand the number of teams and get creative with how players qualify. Teams can be filled by exemptions (i.e. multiple years for winning a major), qualifying avenues (i.e. top FedExCup finishers) and even limited free agency. Teams could also have reserves that can step in should a starter get injured or choose not to compete, though the latter decision would be unlikely considering these events would offer huge purses. The final team event, a world championship, would only feature the top teams from the year and borrow the match-play format that LIV currently uses for its team finale.
With the best players in the world getting heavily compensated through these team events, there would be little need for signature events, which brings me to my next wish…
2. Get rid of signature events
By adding a lineup of team events, there is less reason to ensure all the best players converge on places such as Pebble Beach and Riviera. They will already be squaring off at least 13 times when you add in the majors and The Players – and it’s likely the popular PGA Tour stops will still garner much star power.
Many players and fans have expressed they don’t like limited fields and no cuts (or small cuts), and I don’t blame them. The signature-event model marks the other events as less-important while giving nearly half the PGA Tour an inherent advantage over their counterparts not in those limited fields. Expanding the signature events back to full fields with cuts will create a more consistent tour, where all members, aside from the majors and The Players, will have access to roughly the same number of starts and points. And by adding playing opportunities, the PGA Tour could give 10 cards back to the Korn Ferry Tour and spots back to Monday qualifiers, arguably the two biggest complaints of the 2026 changes announced earlier this year.
Patrick Cantlay might not like this, but as the PGA Tour has said recently, if you have a card, it should mean something; there shouldn’t be multiple classes of PGA Tour player.
Want to play for even more money? Then qualify for the team events.
3. Make Tour Championship match play
I’ve been asking for this for years.
If your best player thinks the current format is silly, then it’s probably silly – and Scottie Scheffler isn’t the only one. The staggered start at East Lake has become a parody of sorts. In no other sport is the deck stacked in a championship finale to provide the best player or team all season with a head start. When the Patriots were undefeated entering the 2007 Super Bowl, they didn’t kick off with a 10-0 lead over the Giants.
The best thing the PGA Tour can do is blow it up and switch to match play.
Match play might not be a player favorite, either, but it is the most exciting for fans, creating not only drama on Sunday but every other day as well, with win-or-go-home scenarios in every match. The thought should be that if a player makes it to the 30-man Tour Championship, he is worthy of winning the season-long FedExCup.
Give the top two players in points after the BMW Championship byes into the second round and then play single elimination until a champion is crowned.
Don’t want stars packing their bags after the first day? Employ a consolation bracket, too. With that much money of the line, even a fifth-place match could be compelling – or at least more compelling than a star teeing off Sunday trailing by 15 shots in stroke play and just coasting into his offseason.
4. Move playoff events around
The PGA Tour currently does not have regular stops in New York, Boston, Chicago, Washington, D.C. and now Las Vegas. If that’s not changing, then I would love for the PGA Tour to give itself flexibility with its playoff stops, especially the Tour Championship.
With only 30 players, the FedExCup finale isn’t a huge undertaking for a golf club, so why not hold it on some prime West Coast venues?
Los Angeles Country Club.
Cypress Point.
Pasatiempo.
Those are just a few options – or dreams.
A guy can dream, right? Here’s to unwrapping some of these in the future.
