Asian Tour Recap: Supupramai Claims the Bharath Classic
Poosit Supupramai claims his maiden Asian Tour victory at the Bharath Classic 2025, securing his card for next season. Preview the Saudi Open finale and Order of Merit battles.
Table of Contents
- The Current PGA Tour Schedule & Format
- The Point of a Condensed Schedule
- What a 20-Event Schedule Might Look Like
- Which Tournaments Could Be Cut
What's The Issue?
In a press conference ahead of the RSM Classic, the final event of the PGA Tour’s Fall Season, veteran Harris English shared some serious changes to the PGA Tour schedule and tour format that could be coming for the 2027 season.
He was asked a question about how those that have qualified for the “Signature Events” on the PGA Tour might be disincentivized from playing more because the Signature Events offer elevated FedEx Cup points. The reporter remarked that they’d heard outsiders mention that it seems like the top players (those in Signature Events) have “got into the treehouse and pulled the ladder up after them”.
Harris English replied:
Yeah, I think that's what they're going to change down the road maybe in 2027 is have all the tournaments be equal and not have the eight elevated events and the regular events. They'll have 20, 22 events that are all the same. I think that's a good model to have. That's where you'll see all the top players play every single event because you can't really afford to take one off. As it goes for the elevated events, like I love -- even if they weren't elevated I'd probably play all of them. I have for a long time. Really, Pebble's the only one that I didn't play for a good amount of time in my career just where it fell in the schedule. I love playing on the West Coast. I love kind of getting off to that started of playing a lot of events over there and get your season started off good. We'll see where it goes. I think they'll more go where 20 events are all the same, all the points, all the money, everything the same.
The Current PGA Tour Schedule & Format
For those that aren’t aware of the current format on the PGA Tour, the top 50 players from prior seasons earn exemptions into the Signature Events, a series of 8 events with elevated FedEx Cup points and purses. Others throughout the season are able to various methods, most notably by playing well in the non-signature events throughout the season. Additionally, some fields for Signature Events are larger than others, so a number of players are in one or two of them, but not all. Despite these opportunities for those outside of the top 50, this has created a “tour within the tour” feel. Those that are in the Signature Events might not feel the need to play the non-signature events, and those that are only exempt into the non-signature events might not feel like they’re truly playing against the best the tour has to offer.
For example, the PGA Tour’s top two stars Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy only played 6 and 5 non-signature events this past season, respectively. To zoom in on Scottie’s season, in 2022, before the tour was divided between Signature and non-signature events, Scottie played in 9 events that are non-signature now.
The intended changes for the PGA Tour’s switch to this model was to get the tour’s stars playing together more often, which to some degree it has accomplished. The top 50 players from the prior season are almost always teeing it up in the same field eight times per year, plus the playoffs. That’s certainly an increase. Though the switch came with the unintended consequences of the “tour within the tour” and that’s what the switch to 20 events would seek to change.
What’s The Point of All of This?
This is the thought everyone’s going to be thinking.
The same thing the PGA Tour wanted to accomplish with the Signature Events (more of the best players playing together more often), they hope to accomplish with a condensed schedule. Less events means that each event is worth more. The total amount of FedEx Cup Points being awarded throughout the season will drop drastically with this format. Assuming major championships are awarded 50% more points than the regular season events as they are now, this new schedule would see a reduction in total FedEx Cup Points by over 40%.
That means that the top players feel more pressured to play a higher number of events, and everyone outside of the most elite on tour will be playing almost every single one of them.
How Is This Going To Work?
For the PGA Tour to whittle the schedule down to 20 events there’s going to need to be some very difficult decisions to be made, and some events that players and fans enjoy are going to be cut from the schedule. Per Golf Digest’s sources some of the events that may be cut from the schedule are The Cognizant or the Valspar Championship, either the Valero Texas Open or the Houston Open, and more. Additionally, there’s rumors that new metropolitan cities that have been historically underserved in professional golf might host events. Cities like Boston, Chicago, and more. We’ll ignore that for the sake of this hypothetical, but it’s something to remember.
So what might this schedule look like? Here’s my best guess:
Date | Event | Location |
Feb 15 - 21 | AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am | Pebble Beach, California |
Feb 22 - 28 | The Genesis Invitational | Pacific Palisades, California |
Mar 1 - 7 | WM Phoenix Open | Scottsdale, Arizona |
Mar 8 - 14 | Miami Championship | Miami, Florida |
Mar 15 - 21 | Arnold Palmer Invitational | Orlando, Florida |
Mar 22 - 28 | THE PLAYERS Championship | Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida |
Mar 29 - Apr 4 | Valero Texas Open | San Antonio, Texas |
Apr 5 - 11 | The Masters | Augusta, Georgia |
Apr 12 - 18 | NO EVENT | ㅤ |
Apr 19 - 25 | Zurich Classic | Avondale, Lousiana |
Apr 26 - May 2 | RBC Heritage | Hilton Head Island, South Carolina |
May 3 - 9 | Cognizant Classic | Palm Beach Gardens, Florida |
May 10 - 16 | Truist Championship | Charlotte, North Carolina |
May 17 - 23 | PGA Championship | Frisco, Texas |
May 24 - 30 | NO EVENT | ㅤ |
May 31 - Jun 6 | John Deere Classic | Silvis, Illinois |
Jun 7 - 13 | the Memorial Tournament | Dublin, Ohio |
Jun 14 - 20 | U.S. Open | Pebble Beach, California |
Jun 21 - 27 | NO EVENT | ㅤ |
Jun 28 - Jul 4 | RBC Canadian Open | Ontario, Canada |
Jul 5 - 11 | Genesis Scottish Open | North Berwick, Scotland |
Jul 12 - 18 | The Open Championship | St. Andrews, Scotland |
Jul 19 - 25 | NO EVENT | ㅤ |
Jul 26 - Aug 1 | Travelers Championship | Cromwell, Connecticut |
Aug 2 - 8 | John Deere Classic | Silvis, Illinois |
Aug 9 - 15 | FedEx St. Jude Championship | Memphis, Tennessee |
Aug 16 - 22 | BMW Championship | St. Louis, Missouri |
Aug 23 - 29 | TOUR Championship | Atlanta, Georgia |
If you’re not familiar with the PGA Tour schedule currently, you might not notice much here, but if you’re an avid follower you might be shocked at how different it looks. It’s not easy to condense down to 20 events.
Here’s the steps I took to make something that I think might work:
- For starters you have to ditch every single opposite field event, those are gone. Perhaps the fall schedule gets expanded and the players can get some additional starts there, but if the goal is 20 events that are all worth the same amount of points, opposite field events simply aren’t viable.
- The PGA Tour has mentioned several times not wanting to compete with the NFL. That means, at the very least, both the Sentry and Sony Open aren’t going to be happening. Both are in Hawaii, both are right in the middle of some of the most compelling NFL games, and if you get rid of one, you probably have to get rid of both because traveling to Hawaii for just one event is going to be a tough sell.
- There’s still 3 more events that are scheduled during the NFL season. There might be some wiggle room with starting the PGA Tour season the week before the Super Bowl, but for now we’ll assume they want to not start until after the season concludes.
- The American Express, Desert Classic, Bob Hope Pro-Am, CareerBuilder Challenge, whatever you want to call it - is first cut from this group. Though AMEX is signed through 2028 as a sponsor, the rotating cast of sponsorships means this one’s got to go, just if we’re making cuts.
- Next is the Farmers Insurance Open. Farmers Insurance has already announced they won’t be renewing their sponsorship of this event, and Torrey unceremoniously falls off the PGA Tour schedule with the cuts.
- Last is the WM Phoenix Open. This obviously isn’t going anywhere, so we’ve moved it back a few weeks.
- Moving the Cognizant Classic to ahead of the Truist Championship in May. This was originally slated to be the spot for the new Miami Championship at Trump Doral, but we’ve got to make some room somewhere, so the Miami Championship moves to earlier in the year and the Cognizant later.
- The Valspar. Gone, dead. It had to be the Valspar or the Cognizant Classic and while nothing rolls off the tongue worse than the word “Cognizant”, the PGA Tour moved that event to their Championship Management Division, meaning the event is run as a for-profit entity. If a decision needs to be made, it’s unlikely they’re going to axe the for-profit one.
- The Houston Open is removed from the schedule as making room becomes increasingly difficult. The back-to-back in Texas wasn’t going to happen with the condensed schedule, so Valero survives and Houston does not. Valero has been a sponsor of this event since 2002, and the Houston Open seemingly has a new sponsor every year (Texas Children’s is signed through 2028, but they’ve had a lot of different sponsors in recent years).
- Another Texas event falls as the CJ Cup Byron Nelson disappears from the 2027 schedule. It doesn’t make a ton of sense for The CJ Group, a Korean Logistics company to sponsor an event in McKinney, Texas. This sponsorship deal runs through 2033, but perhaps CJ Group could find some value in sponsoring an event on a global tour. That’s not the point here, though.
- Lastly, in one fell swoop, we’ve removed the Rocket Classic, Wyndham Championship, and 3M Open from the schedule. This allows the Traveler’s and John Deere Classic to fill the spots between The Open Championship and the start of the FedEx Cup Playoffs. The Rocket Classic and 3M Open have been around for roughly 15 minutes. The Wyndham Championship, while in discussions to renew their sponsorship, has yet to do so.
What Did We Accomplish?
That was a lot. But I think what we’ve come up with here fits the necessary criteria of:
- 20 events not counting majors or fall series
- No events after major championships
- Maintained as many major sponsorships and historical events as possible
- Has a “west coast swing”, which I think is an interesting part of the schedule and should be preserved.
Will the schedule actually end up looking anything like this mock-up? Nobody really knows the answer to this. There’s a million complexities built into these contracts, ongoing renewals, TV deals, and more. This is just an example of what it could look like, you know, in a world where working out the details was an easy thing to do. And even in that hypothetical world, that world where I really didn’t have to think of most of the complicated details, it wasn’t that easy.
Brian Rolapp is going to have his hands full with this one.
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