Change is coming to the PGA Tour. In the newest transfer to lift the Tour’s profile and counter LIV Golf’s affect, new Tour CEO Brian Rolapp and the Future Competition Committee need to shrink the variety of tournaments on the schedule, the size of the season and the variety of PGA Tour playing cards doled out annually.
The anticipated strikes have been publicly supported by the likes of Tiger Woods (although not a lot Rory McIlroy).
But two well-known figures within the sport have now supplied an alternate view.
In a new report by Golfweek’s Adam Schupak, two-time main champion Curtis Strange and seven-time PGA Tour winner-turned TV analyst Peter Jacobsen sharply criticized the brand new PGA Tour adjustments.
Here’s what it’s good to know.
Curtis Strange criticizes new PGA Tour course, minimize adjustments
Strange is a family identify to golf followers. The World Golf Hall of Famer captured 17 Tour wins in his profession and gained back-to-back U.S. Opens in 1988 and 1989. He additionally served as U.S. Ryder Cup captain in 2002.
After that, Strange embarked on a prolonged profession as a shade commentator and TV analyst, first for ESPN and ABC and later for Fox.
But in his comments to Schupak, Strange made it clear he doesn’t help the foremost PGA Tour adjustments which were made lately, or the course the Tour appears to be heading.
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Strange’s main factors of competition are the lack of cuts at many Signature Events, the detrimental affect on long-running common Tour occasions and the six-month season the Tour is reportedly eyeing.
“You can have an elevated event,” Strange instructed Schupak, “But a cut, it’s part of the fabric of the Tour. It’s making longstanding events into a feeder tour to the other Signature Events,” Strange argued.
In a thinly-veiled hit at Rolapp, the Tour’s CEO who used to work for the NFL, Strange added, “Golf is a different animal than football. It’s not a six-month audience.”
Strange then recognized the “problem” that led to so many adjustments on the PGA Tour is having the “players running the asylum.”
“The problem is you have the players running the asylum. Why do you think (former PGA Tour board member) Jimmy Dunne left?” Strange requested. “He mentioned, ‘shoot, why am I wasting my time anymore?’”
Since LIV Golf arrived in 2022, one of the other big Tour changes that occurred was giving players more influence in the Tour’s decision-making through the Future Competition Committee, which is led by Woods.
Peter Jacobsen: Pros who help Tour adjustments ought to ‘go join LIV’
Like Strange, Jacobsen was an completed PGA Tour participant earlier than turning into a golf TV analyst.
Unlike Strange, Jacobsen didn’t maintain again in any respect in his criticism of current Tour adjustments in his personal feedback in Schupak’s story.
Jacobsen described the plan to “remake the PGA Tour” as a “huge gamble,” and questioned why main adjustments are crucial.
“It’s a huge gamble trying to remake the PGA Tour. I’ve read a lot of the players saying, ‘Well, we all know the PGA Tour has to change,’ and I ask the question, Why? It was working really well before.”
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He additionally hit straight on the big-name gamers pushing for adjustments, saying that in the event that they wished to play fewer occasions with extra stars within the subject they need to “go join LIV.”
“If the players wanted to have tournaments where the good players play more often together, they have that at LIV. Go join LIV.”
But Jacobsen saved most of his ire for the Tour’s plan so as to add shortage to the Tour schedule. That would contain getting rid of some long-running Tour events in favor of a shorter season.
“I get scared when I hear people saying cutting events. When you look at the individual communities, those events are so important to that community and the charity money raised is important to those golf fans,” Jacobsen argued. “I always thought the PGA Tour should expand their reach rather than contract their reach. Count me as someone who thinks we should be growing the Tour and having more events rather than contracting.”
Rolapp has a pre-Players Championship press convention deliberate for Wednesday morning at PGA Tour headquarters, the place he’s anticipated to make an announcement concerning the way forward for the Tour.
You can learn each Jacobsen and Strange’s full feedback in Schupak’s Golfweek story here.
