PGA Tour's growing fall-forward thinking
As FedEx Cup season grows leaner, the fall schedule will offer more playing opportunities
The Cliffs at Walnut Cove will host fall event near Asheville, N.C. (Jack Robert Photography/The Cliffs at Walnut Cove)
If the PGA Tour is planning to contract in the name of “scarcity” in future years, it certainly doesn’t seem as if that will occur during the fall part of the schedule.
After announcing a tournament to be played at the Omni Barton Creek Resort & Spa’s Fazio Canyons Course in Austin, Texas, starting next fall to be sponsored by the golf brand company Good Good, the PGA Tour came back with another new tournament this week that will take place next September near Asheville, N.C. The new Biltmore Championship will be played Sept. 17-20, 2026, at The Cliffs at Walnut Cove — marking the first tour event in the Asheville area since 1942.
So much for cutting back.
There are seven tournaments as part of the FedEx Fall in 2025, including this week’s Butterfield Bermuda Championship and next week’s RSM Classic at Sea Island in Georgia, the final official event of the year. There will be at least eight in 2026.
The Procore Championship and the Sanderson Farms Championship are in limbo, with their title sponsorship deals expired. It is possible they will be gone from the schedule entirely. Unlike past years, the tour is no longer in the business of subsidizing tournament purses with its for-profit structure. Without a title sponsor, it is unlikely that an even will be staged.
Still, the Mexico Championship — which was played in February following the Genesis Invitational during the regular FedEx Cup season this year — is set to move to the fall next year, making way for the new signature event in Doral, Florida, in the spring.
That means that even if the two fall tournaments go away, the PGA Tour will still have one more event set for 2026 in the fall, with the possibility of adding two more given the vacant weeks on the fall schedule.
While it might seem odd to add to the weakest part of the schedule that competes with football season, the maneuver actually makes some sense.
Playing opportunities have been reduced during the regular season with trimmer fields and the cancelled season-opening Sentry at Kapalua, and the schedule figures to be scaled back even more under CEO Brian Rolapp’s mandate for scarcity coupled with more meaningful tournaments.
It only makes sense that the long schedule might get a hair cut, thus cutting into opportunities for the membership but still allowing for the stars to compete in the big-money Signature events.
A “less is more” approach makes sense and Rolapp, a former NFL executive, knows very well how that has served America’s most popular professional sport over the years. Fans can’t get enough of the NFL, with the sport going away for months during the offseason.
But with fewer spots during the year, Rolapp can sell to the masses that there is still opportunity in the fall. Eight tournaments in addition to a handful of opposite events during the regular season offer plenty of chances to earn FedEx Cup points and thus status.
The reason these events work for the tour is they come with smaller purses, thus giving the tour the opportunity to sell a cheaper product to a sponsor while still making money in this new for-profit world.
This week’s purse in Bermuda is $6 million and next week’s is $7 million. The majority of the purses during the regular season are at $8.4 million and up, with the signature event purses at $20 million and the Players Championship $25 million.
The rank-and-file players on the PGA Tour understandably don’t like the cut from 125 all-exempt spots to 100 as well as Korn Ferry Tour promotions dropping from 25 to 20 cards. The tour will be leaner going forward, but it will still offer plenty of chances for players who might have otherwise thought opportunities to make a living in professional golf were only getting bleaker.