Promotion, relegation and match play: PGA Tour unveils radical new structure
The PGA Tour has revealed its planned changes to its competitive model, schedule and playoffs, changes that will be more substantial than any in the Tour’s half-century-long history.
Most notably, the Tour will now have two different competitive tracks for players, the Championship and Challenger series. The Tour’s season will also end in a new playoff format, distinctive from the current Tour Championship. These changes will begin with the 2028 season.
The new format was developed by the tour’s Future Competition Committee, a nine-member organization chaired by Tiger Woods that includes five players — Patrick Cantlay, Maverick McNealy, Keith Mitchell, Adam Scott, Camilo Villegas and Woods, as well as executives Joe Gorder, John Henry and Theo Epstein. The Future Competition Committee, formed in August 2025, sought to improve the consistency and quality of fields across the regular season, create a clear system for promotion/relegation, and develop a more competitive experience, with meritocracy as a central goal.
What is the PGA Tour’s new format?
The new format will include two different series of events, running concurrently. The PGA Tour Championship will feature the tour’s best players, competing in 23 to 24 events, with 36-hole cuts and purses of $20 million per event. Each Championship series event will include roughly 120 players, although players will not be required to play a specific number of events.
The $20 million purse per event is a significant enticement for players; the U.S. Open, which just concluded, had a purse of $22.5 million.
At the same time, the PGA Tour Challenger series will run with at least 20 events, several of which will be played in the same week as Championship events. Purses will be at least $4 million per event.
How do players move between series?
Players will be able to move up and down between the two series. A player on the Challenger series will earn a promotion to the Championship series with two in-season wins, or a finish in the top 20 for the entire season. They will also get promoted if they win a major championship. At the same time, players on the Championship series who finish outside the top 90 will be relegated to the Challenger series.
The Tour has not yet established how tournament winners and career-milestone exemptions will play into the field of the Championship series, though it’s likely the Tour will carve out opportunities for established players and tournament winners. Tiger Woods, for instance, will likely not have any difficulty playing in a Championship series event, should he choose to do so.
Championship series events will not have sponsor exemptions, which had become a controversial point in recent years, or Monday qualifying to join the field. Challenger series events will have the opportunity for Monday qualifying, with sponsor exemptions yet to be determined.
How will players be sorted into the two series prior to the 2028 season?
The Tour is still working on developing criteria for which players slot into which series. However, the Tour indicated that these decisions will be finalized before the 2027 season, so players will know what they have to play for prior to next season.
Players in the Championship series will not be permitted to play in Challenger events.
Will LIV players be invited into the new Tour framework?
PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp indicated on Tuesday that his focus has been on building the new framework, not on bringing potential former players back into the fold. Bryson DeChambeau’s LIV contract ends at the end of this season, while Jon Rahm remains under contract for several more seasons. Any repatriation of former LIV players would be dependent both on LIV allowing their release (or not re-signing them) and on satisfying whatever conditions the PGA Tour chooses to implement as part of that process.
What about existing pathways to the PGA Tour, such as the Korn Ferry Tour, the DP World Tour and the PGA Tour University points scale?
The Tour is still reviewing the specifics of how each of these feeder options will continue to work, including which series will be available to players on those feeder tours. The PGA Tour will announce these criteria prior to the 2027 season. The Tour will also continue its annual Q-School to qualify for the “PGA Tour ecosystem.”
How long will the PGA Tour’s season run?
Starting with the 2028 season, the PGA Tour will begin with a significant February event. The two series will run from February to August. There will also be a fall competition to allow for players to play their way onto the Championship Series with several “last-chance” events.
Which events will be listed as Championship series events, and which will be Challenger events?
The Tour indicated that it has already lined up an initial slate of 10 events for the planned 15 regular season Championship events. (The rest of the schedule will include The Players Championship, the four majors, the postseason tournaments, and international team events — Presidents Cup/Ryder Cup.) Certain longstanding, legacy events like the Arnold Palmer Invitational and the Memorial will almost surely be among those regular-season Championship series events.
The Tour plans to fill out the remaining Championship events with a combination of existing events or new events in new markets; the Tour specifically noted locations such as Boston, Denver, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C.
How will the PGA Tour series wrap up its season?
The current PGA Tour playoff format consists of three stroke-play events, concluding with the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta. Starting in 2028, the Tour’s playoff system will feature match play, and will rotate through various courses. Further details will be revealed at this year’s Tour Championship next month.
