Intangibles the PGA Tour should consider for future schedule changes

Make no mistake about this: Some decisions as to what the 2027 PGA Tour schedule will look like have already been made.

Some decisions have had to be made. Tour events need to know something about their dates, particularly early season tournaments, in order to make sure contracts are signed and hotel venues are lined up and participating local sponsors understand when the tournament will be played and how much money their sponsorship will cost. The PGA Tour couldn’t wait until, say, June, to tell a tournament in February that it will in fact be played in February and not March.

While the world waits for more information to come out at The Players Championship in Florida next week, there is an unfortunate consequence of the proposed contraction in the sport. Tournaments are being pitted against each other, much like college basketball teams trying to make the NCAA March Madness bracket of 68 teams.

Who is better in this aspect of the game, and who is better at that aspect of the game? Tournaments that really shouldn’t be compared against each other are in fact being compared by fans, the media and certainly some people at PGA Tour headquarters.

So what are the intangibles of tournaments that are being compared these days? Here’s a few to think about:

Quality of field matters

The entire idea of a smaller, leaner PGA Tour is to get the best players to play in the same tournament more often. So a tournament that already attracts many of the best players might have an advantage over a tournament that traditionally struggles for players. The American Express had five of the top 10 in the Official World Golf Ranking, and it would have been six of the top 10 had Justin Thomas been healthy enough to play. By comparison, the Cognizant Classic had just one of the top 30 by the time a few bigger-name players withdrew. Some of that is a function of the PGA Tour schedule and where the Cognizant sits among signature events. If it’s a competition, which tournament wins?

Golf course conditions

Players annually rave about the condition of the three golf courses for The American Express, particularly the greens at La Quinta Country Club. That isn‘t always true of some tournaments. At the Cognizant this week, the turf conditions are fine but some players are arguing that by overseeding a Bermuda base with rye grass, the course has become too easy. That’s the same overseed done to Coachella Valley courses, but at PGA West the Bermuda grass in the rough areas is not overseeded and is forced into dormancy. Fair comparison? Maybe not.

Weather

If it rains during your tournament, do you get deductions from your final score? Pebble Beach had some rugged weather this year with rain and strong winds. But that’s nothing unusual for the Monterey Peninsula this time of year, and iconic Pebble Beach doesn’t have to worry about being relegated off the tour. The American Express had four perfect days of weather, but in February it would run into warmer weather like the 90-degree temperatures. Even Tiger Woods, tournament host of the Genesis Invitational in Los Angeles, talked about how the weather for his tournament would be better in August than in February.

Metropolitan size

Here’s on area The American Express could be in trouble. Much of what the PGA Tour has said centers around playing in big markets. That could be Los Angeles and San Diego, but the Coachella Valley is a small market by population. It is a big market, though, for golf itself, and that could make a big difference. A major golf market might not be a major population market like Boston or Detroit, but it might be enough to keep a tournament in the desert.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: PGA Tour 2027 schedule changes should consider these intangibles