PGA Tour chief executive Brian Rolapp with Tiger Woods at a press conference in Connecticut this week. Image courtesy X.
By Rahul Banerji
With its Future Competition Committee chairman Tiger Woods front and centre at the announcement, the PGA Tour said it would implement a two-tier model for its schedule from 2028.
The new structure will have two series of tournaments — the Championship Series and Challenger Series — that will come into force from 2028, the Tour said in Connecticut ahead of this week’s Travellers Championship.
Fifteen-time major winner Woods heads the FCC, which signed off formally on the proposal which will break up the world’s premier professional golf tour into two levels with widely differing prize purse sizes.
The Championship Series will offer $20 million for the top 120 players with no alternate list or sponsor exemptions while the Challengers will have $4 million as prize money for 144-strong fields. The cut will be for the top 65 in both cases.
“Over the past eight months, the Future Competition Committee has spent a lot of time on a very important and fundamental question: How do we build the strongest possible version of the PGA Tour?” Woods was quoted as saying.
“This work was never about any one player or person. It was about bringing together different perspectives, having honest, hard conversations and thinking boldly about what is best for the game that we all love.”
Formalised structure
“The new model is built upon a foundation of meritocracy, with players moving between the two series through a formalised structure of promotion and relegation,” the Tour said.
“From day one, the focus of the FCC has been to build the best version of the PGA Tour, and to do so in a way that reflects the voice of our players and the expectations of our fans,” Tour CEO Brian Rolapp was quoted as saying.
Under the new system, the Championship Series will have 23 or 24 events, inclusive of The Players Championship, the majors and international team events like the Presidents Cup and Ryder Cup, with the season running from February to August.
An initial set of 10 of its expected 15 Championship Series regular season events for 2028 are already pencilled in.
The remaining will either be filled by existing events or new markets under consideration, such as Boston, Denver, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C.
The series will also feature the introduction of match play, with a new-look Tour Championship contested different courses, which mean’s Atlanta’s East Lake could be just one of the venues instead of being the host course as it is now.
Overseas events
Top players from the Championship Series will also be eligible for a limited series of elevated international events including national opens, played in partnership with the DP World Tour as part of the alliance.
As the primary pathway to the Championship Series, the Challenger Series will offer a slate of at least 20 events with purses of at least $4 million as players look to earn promotion.
Challenger events will be played during Championship Series off weeks. Players from the higher tier will not be eligible to participate in Challenger events, described as a “glorified Korn Ferry Tour” by world no. 2 Rory McIlroy.
Both series will operate separate points systems, with points earned only in respective competitions.
The top 90 finishers will be fully exempt for the following season and those below that line relegated to the Challenger Series. A minimum of 20 players from the Challenger Series will be promoted for the following season.
There will be two opportunities for Challenger Series players to earn immediate promotions to the Championship Series: by winning multiple events within the same season and by winning a major.
There will also be a “last chance” series, featuring four to six events played in the fall, where a limited number of spots on the elite tier for the following season will be available as players look to improve – or retain – their status.
The Tour will continue to hold an annual qualifying tournament (Q-School) to provide access across its ecosystem, including the Challenger Series, a “last chance” series and the developmental pathways.
Finer points
“This model positions the us for the future,” Rolapp said. “Our focus now shifts to finalising the details and preparing for implementation in 2028.”
With the DP World Tour “strategic alliance” ending next year, there was no clarity on the current system of the top 10 in the Race to Dubai gaining PGA Tour status.
“It hasn’t been decided,” Rolapp said. “We’ve had a really successful relationship with the DP World Tour, inclusive of those cards.That’s one of the many things we’re speaking about.”
Meanwhile, approved Rolapp’s elevation as the next Commissioner of the PGA Tour, effective Jan. 1, 2027.
Rolapp was appointed CEO in June 2025 and officially joined in July after a 22-year tenure at the NFL.
He becomes the fifth Commissioner in Tour history, after Joe Dey (1969-1974), Deane Beman (1974-1994), Tim Finchem (1994-2016) and Jay Monahan (2017-2026).
Monahan’s role as Commissioner ends on December 31 this year, marking a decade at the helm of the organisation.
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