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The PGA TOUR is set to unleash its new strategy for the 2024 season. The touring board approved the radical strategy on Tuesday night.
This will result in smaller fields for the newly designated events and the elimination of the 36-hole cut. There will be no midway cut and fields in the specified events will be trimmed to between 70 and 78 participants.
However, the major championships, the FedEx Cup, and the Players Championship playoff tournaments will not be impacted by the changes and neither will the rest of the elevated events.
How the PGA TOUR will redesign its structure
This year, designated tournaments with minimum purses of $20 million per event were introduced in an effort to secure the participation of the game's best talents and ensure they get paid more. No adjustments to field sizes were made to 2023 since the designated events were created quickly as a direct reaction to the danger posed by LIV Golf. If the Tour resumes its calendar-year schedule in 2024, that will not be the case.
Since the PGA TOUR will perceive it as denying them playing opportunities, rank-and-file members will undoubtedly be concerned about shrinking their fields. The proposal, according to a top player who spoke on the record under the condition of anonymity, would not establish a closed ecosystem for elite stars and would allow participants to earn their way into selected stops.
The top 50 players who qualified for the BMW Championship during the FedEx Cup playoffs of the previous season, together with the top 10 players who are otherwise ineligible, will make up the field at the specified tournaments. More than five positions will be awarded for accomplishments in undesignated events.
For instance, the PGA TOUR's objective is to create a calendar cadence where two marked events are followed by three non-designated competitions, then another two designated events. The top five scorers from the three undesignated pit stops will gain entry into the upcoming undesignated competitions. Each player who wins on the Tour is immediately qualified for all of the season's sanctioned events.
The Official World Golf Rankings will be taken into account, perhaps with an emphasis on the top 30 players. This was done to make room for a star athlete who could be recuperating from an injury and is otherwise ineligible for the events mentioned.
Sponsor exemptions will also continue to be used, but with more precise guidelines on who qualifies. These exemptions are a contentious aspect of designated tournaments, but they also offer the most straightforward means to guarantee that Tiger Woods may participate in whatever event he chooses.
To guarantee enough system turnover, the PGA TOUR executives did several data simulations of how a season might unfold. At their conference in Delaware last summer, the best players proposed smaller fields and no cuts, although, under their criteria, 80% of the players would have remained in the top tournaments from season to season. Just 60% of those qualified for designated events are expected to stay so according to the framework approved by the board for the upcoming season.
The PGA TOUR will send a message outlining the changes to its members later on Wednesday.
