The PGA Tour needs to rethink its Signature Events

We have just witnessed two PGA Tour Signature Events with star-studded fields strutting their stuff.

We saw a return to form for Collin Morikawa, the emergence of Jacob Bridgeman, proof that Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy are not far from their best and encouraging signs from England’s Tommy Fleetwood.

At the same time, the DP World Tour took a two-week break. This is not unusual and, apparently, is built into the schedule at the request of the players.

I have seriously mixed feelings about the Signature Events. 

Many of us have been deeply critical of LIV’s format - limited fields with no 36-hole cuts. They have at least finally increased their format to the 72-holes that golf fans recognise. But how can the PGA Tour criticise LIV when it now has a series of tournaments that follow exactly the same format?

You will be aware that the prize funds at said Signature Events are vast. Morikawa collected $3.6m for winning at Pebble Beach on the same weekend that Anthony Kim pocketed $4m after his LIV success in Adelaide in front of 115,000 spectators.

We are still in February and Morikawa already has official earnings of $3.622m, closely followed by Chris Gotterup on $3.5m and Scheffler on $2.9m. Even in this day and age, these remain staggering amounts of money.

And the point of all of this? It only serves to prove that the gap between the game’s elite and the so-called journeymen is continuing to grow.

In the not-too-distant past if you gained a PGA Tour then you knew that you were going to be able to play a full schedule. Not any more you don’t.

The field at Pebble Beach comprised 80 golfers - and there was no cut. The Genesis featured 72 players - and a limited cut for the top 50 plus ties and any player within 10 shots of the lead.

It all means that for golfers who have tour cards but do not qualify for these tournaments, they have to sit on the sidelines twiddling their thumbs for three weeks watching the rich get richer and the gap between themselves and the elite growing ever wider.

And I am sorry, but I just think that is plain wrong. Of course, these huge prize pots were created to stop more leading lights deciding to defect to LIV. And it has worked. Brooks Koepka is back on tour and will be followed next season by Patrick Reed, who is currently making hay on the DP World Tour.

It's all well and good for the likes of McIlroy to tell his rivals to "play better", as he has done. But the point is that many young golfers are being given fewer opportunities to make the breakthrough.

So how do you get into a Signature Event? Let’s take the RBC Heritage as an example.

PGA Tour winners from the previous calendar year, as well as the top 50 players from the 2025 FedExCup standings through the Tour Championship will all be eligible for the RBC Heritage. Bear in mind that if you won a tournament last year it is odds on that you will already be in the top 50 in the standings.

In 2026 there are eight Signature Events. When you add in the four majors, that is 12 tournaments where the rank-and-file are likely to be stuck at home wondering what on earth they have to do to improve their status. Yes, in some weeks there are smaller tournaments running at the same time as the Signature Events but the prize money available at those is much smaller and because the fields are conceived as bing much weaker then the ranking points on offer are pretty insignificant too.

Of course there is hope. This time last year most golf fans would never have heard of Gotterup. His sole victory had come at the low-key Myrtle Beach Classic. He went into the Scottish Open ranked 158th in the world but won in Scotland and followed it with a third place at The Open. In January he added the Sony Open and followed it with another win at the WM Phoenix Open. He is currently ranked sixth in the world.

It is an inspirational story and shows what can be achieved but it is a rarity in the extreme.