The PGA Tour postseason is changing and golf fans are finally getting what they asked for. In 2028, the first year the PGA Tour moves to its Championship and Challenger Series format, a 90-man stroke play event will crown the season-long points winner. After that, the top 32 players will advance to a two-week competition at rotating venues for the new Tour Championship. The first week will feature World Cup-style group play, with the top 32 players in the final season standings divided into eight groups of four. The top two players in each group will advance to the final week, and any ties will be decided by playoffs. Then, at a different venue, the Tour Championship will be decided in a four-round, 16-man single-elimination draw ending with a final match to decide a champion. PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp is expected to announce the changes at a news conference Tuesday morning at the Tour Championship in Atlanta. The 16 players will continue playing all four days, even after being eliminated, to decide the final championship standings. The PGA Tour remains in talks about ways to encourage proper incentives in loser’s bracket games. Tour championship venues will rotate annually, and PGA Tour officials believe it will bring the series to courses they “have not traditionally been able to host.” Wyndham Clark wins the BMW Championship over Rory McIlroy, Patrick Cantlay. what specific rules and what was at stake that year. The three-tournament playoff, which starts with 70 players and narrows to 30 for this week’s Tour Championship, has always ended in Atlanta at East Lake, and most recently included the FedEx St. Jude Championship in Memphis and the BMW Championship (the site changes each year). Rolapp created the Futures Competition Committee when he took office a year ago, with a view to making progressive changes to the tour structure. That committee already announced in June a new two-tier PGA Tour configuration with promotion and relegation, headlined by a more exclusive Championship Series with 120-player fields, 36-hole events and $20 million purses. Early in the process, Rolapp met with current media rights partners CBS, NBC and ESPN, as well as Netflix, Amazon and others to brainstorm ways to improve golf. “The mandate was like looking at a blank sheet of paper and asking, ‘What do I do? Do you think it would make the sport more interesting?’ “If it wasn’t authentic to the players, it wasn’t going to resonate with anyone,” Rolapp said. “So the players really took ownership of it.” Adam Scott, were tasked with formulating a plan that would adequately reward a season-long champion while also creating an attractive new opportunity for the Tour Championship. PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp has brought in new ideas from his former job in the NFL (Cliff Hawkins / Getty Images) Since Rolapp’s first press conference during last year’s Tour Championship, the direction of the PGA Tour has changed dramatically. four more are expected in the coming weeks. Long-term relationships with major sponsors such as FedEx, Wells Fargo, Farmers Insurance, Rocket and American Express appear to be coming to an end. Meanwhile, the final four Championship Series events, according to a source briefed on the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, will be decided shortly, and the tour is in talks with 14 potential partners. “I think we’ve been very happy with the reception we’ve received so far from current sponsors,” he said. Rolapp, “and quite overwhelmed with the attention we have from sponsors we don’t have. There have been a lot of people coming in, unsolicited (queries). We’re not going out to market any of this.” Rolapp inherited a company that accepted a $1.5 billion investment from Strategic Sports Group in 2024, and the new consortium of major sports franchise owners and private equity chiefs gave the PGA Tour some breathing room in its then-war with the upstart LIV Golf League. That also meant bringing in private capital and instilling changes in the way the tour operates as it potentially faced financial demands. In April, the PGA Tour laid off 4 percent of its staff after a review by FTI Consulting. Since then, the tour has identified between $70 and $90 million in savings, according to the same source, as more than 200 positions were affected by a combination of layoffs, a voluntary retirement program and the closure of open positions. But Rolapp and company have also seen a nearly $300 million increase in revenue. 2024 to 2026, and in 2025 the tour returned to profitability for the first time since 2022. It is now filling 65 vacant positions, including at least 10 senior positions It has been a period of optimism for the tour after several years of painful challenges in its battle with LIV Just as golf was becoming more popular than ever after the so-called “COVID boom,” interest in the professional game seemed to wane as wallets dwindled. were shooting to compete with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. But in 2026, ratings are up 19 percent from last year and 40 percent from 2024. Rolapp’s next focus will be to iron out the details of the Challenger Series, the tier below the top Championship Series with smaller purses of $4 million. Full schedule ready for next August.
