There is nothing official, and the PGA Tour has not made any announcements, but you know how these types of news stories tend to emerge. Often, it all starts with a mere accident. That seemed to be the case with Harris English‘s press conference during the lead-up to the RSM Classic this week. The player who was benched during the Ryder Cup singles due to Viktor Hovland’s injury has hinted that the American circuit is preparing drastic changes to its schedule for 2027.
The most important thing he mentioned is that they are considering starting the season right after the Super Bowl, that is, mid-to-late February, and that all tournaments would be the same, meaning there would no longer be designated events. Obviously, there would be fewer events. In short, substantial and very important changes.
“The Tour has changed a lot since I first joined in 2012. It’s going to keep evolving. We have very smart people in charge. Now, with Brian Rolapp coming in, he is looking at the PGA TOUR from a different perspective. Sometimes change is good. I understand they want all the best players playing together more often, and the fact that there’s talk of the Tour potentially starting after the Super Bowl seems quite positive to me because we really can’t compete with American football,” he noted.
If confirmed, this situation would cause a seismic shift in what has been the PGA Tour schedule in recent years, especially in the tournaments in Hawaii and the West Coast. It doesn’t mean they will disappear, but they will certainly be moved to different dates. Similarly, it would open the door for PGA Tour golfers to participate in DP World Tour tournaments in January, especially the Hero Dubai Desert Classic. Who knows if it might even favour the emergence of another Rolex Series event in January on the European circuit.
That change is significant, but perhaps the most profound aspect is that all tournaments on the calendar would distribute the same points, meaning there would no longer be elevated events, at least in terms of points distribution. The goal with this measure is for the best players to play more often and almost the entire calendar, although that remains to be seen.
“I think that’s what they’re going to change later on, maybe in 2027. The idea is to have all tournaments on an equal footing and not have eight elevated events and the rest normal. They will have 20, 22 tournaments that are all the same. I think that’s a good model. That’s where you’ll see all the best players competing in each and every tournament because you really can’t afford to skip one. As for the elevated events, I love them… even if they weren’t elevated, I would probably play them all. I’ve done it for a long time. Really, Pebble is the only one I didn’t play for quite a part of my career simply because of where it fell in the schedule. I love playing on the West Coast. I love starting there, playing many tournaments, and getting the season off to a good start. We’ll see where it goes. I think it will move towards a model where 20 tournaments are all the same, same points, same money, everything equal,” he advanced.
Now, what remains to be seen, and what Harris English did not reveal, is whether when he says the same money, he means that all prize pools will be raised to the level of the designated ones, that is, $20 million, or if, on the contrary, the elevated ones will lower their stakes. Logically, to remain competitive, especially in its battle against LIV Golf, there should only be 20 tournaments, but all with $20 million. There you can imagine Scottie Scheffler playing between 17 and 20 PGA Tour tournaments, almost the entire calendar, plus the Majors. It would be more difficult for Rory McIlroy, as he includes many DP World Tour tournaments in his schedule.
We’ll see what happens and if it finally takes place. There is no doubt that it is being studied. It also aligns with the voices suggesting a reduction to 80 of the players who will retain the PGA Tour card at the end of the 2026 season. Many changes with the great goal of seeing the best more often.
English didn’t go much further. It remains to be defined whether the proposed schedule is only from February to August, which would basically mean not coinciding with American football. We’ll see if it materialises that way and the PGA Tour ends a little later, around September, before the Ryder Cup. In short, many questions to be resolved and a sea of speculations opened by English, probably unintentionally, which the circuit will need to address soon.
