Three Ways to Fix the PGA Tour Schedule (Again)

We have made it through Year One of the (Howard Finkle voice) NEW! PGA Tour Fall Swing. Seven tournaments help players who did not make the FedEx Cup top 50 during the 2023 season qualify for events in 2024.

A RSM Classic Champion Forever pic.twitter.com/6qvya8F3dR

— The RSM Classic (@TheRSMClassic) November 19, 2023

Didn’t know about them? That’s not a surprise. Due to football taking up all the oxygen on the weekends, television coverage of these events has been sparse. There is only so much investment capital we can spend on sports at one time, and football rules the roost.

So what can be done to draw more eyes to these tournaments that are lesser in stature than what we see from January to August? Here are three simple steps the PGA Tour can take:

INCENTIVIZE ELITE PLAYERS TO PLAY

Since the top 50 in the FedEx Cup standings cannot accrue points towards 2024¹, there is little reason for them to grind through the fall. There also simply is not the sponsorship level necessary to make the payouts large enough to draw them in, when they can instead enjoy some deserved time off.

By tweaking the model so that playing in a fall event can benefit players in 2024, they can at least improve the chance of a Scheffler or Rory showing up in a tournament like the Shriners or RSM.

PGA TOURCAST FOR ALL TOURNAMENTS

As mentioned, the fall tournaments lack the same television coverage as those during the regular season. Jim Nantz is not showing up at the Bermuda Championship. He’s busy, friends. We also do not get PGA Tour Live coverage, which is especially helpful in the early rounds when golf fans might be tracking their…investment portfolio.

This is why PGA TourCast comes into play. This lets people follow whichever player they want, shot by shot. This was available at the RSM Classic, but was not for most of the other Fall Swing events. In these tournaments, you only see a hole breakdown such as:

• Shot one from tee box
• Shot two from fairway
• Green
• In the hole

Bringing TourCast back for all tournaments just makes it easier for fans to follow what is happening, even if television coverage is not feasible.

TAKE THE WEEKENDS OFF

PGA Tour events are typically played from Thursday to Sunday because, well, they always have been. But as we said earlier, fall season events simply cannot compete with college and pro football in drawing eyeballs.

So why even try?

Shift the schedule for these events to Tuesday to Friday. You still won’t get network coverage, but shifting the schedule, along with a focus on west coast events, would allow you to own the Happy Hour crowd on Thursday and Friday.

Precedent has been set, as the PGA moved the Farmers Insurance Open to a Wednesday to Saturday schedule to break free from Championship Game weekend in the NFL.

The PGA Tour will never dominate the sports cycle in the fall. But a commitment to providing fans as much access to Fall Swing events as possible, as well as a little outside-the-box thinking can at least give these events a slightly more prominent place on sports fans’ radar post-Tour Championship.

Cover Image via PGA Tour