The PGA Tour will overhaul its season finale from 2028, replacing it with a championship series and a match play event.
The tour said on its website on the 26th, Korean time, that the season will close with a match play tournament featuring the top 32 players.
Under the revamp, the current FedEx Cup Playoffs — three consecutive events that narrow the field by FedEx Cup ranking, from the top 70 to 50 to 30 — will be eliminated. In their place, the tour will create the Championship Series Finale, a 72-hole stroke play event for the top 90 players in season points. That tournament will determine the season champion and finalize the season points standings.
A separate Tour Championship will follow the Championship Series Finale. Billed as a champion-of-champions event, it will be open only to the top 32 players in season points and will run as match play over two weeks. In the first week, the field will be split into eight groups of four for a group stage, similar to the soccer World Cup. The top two from each group will advance to the second week, which will be held at a different venue, where 16 players will compete in four rounds of knockout match play.
It is the first time the PGA Tour's postseason will be contested in match play, golf's earliest form of competition. "We listened carefully to fans, players and partners," PGA Tour Chief Executive Brian Rolapp said, adding that the tour has built a new structure for the Tour Championship while still rewarding outstanding performance over the course of a year.
Because the Tour Championship will be a small-field event with just 32 players, the tour is expected to be able to stage it at storied courses that have been left off the modern schedule because of limits on course size or infrastructure. Rolapp said it would be an exciting opportunity to showcase some of the most famous courses in the sport.
Players have welcomed the change. Tiger Woods of the United States wrote on social media that he was excited to usher in a new era of match play on the PGA Tour. Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland said the tour had attempted a major change and that he liked it, while adding that it is also important for the regular-season champion, crowned through stroke play, to be properly rewarded.
