Will PGA Tour changes actually improve the product?

After all the speculation, after all the talk of radical change, we finally know what the future of the PGA Tour is going to look like from 2028.

They can dress it up any way they want but the promotion and relegation element that was so vaunted when the announcement was made looks very much to me like nothing much has changed.

To give the whole occasion added gravitas, they wheeled out Tiger Woods for his first public appearance since his latest car crash. For this onlooker at least, the whole spectacle was utterly bizarre.

Woods is the chairman of the tour's Future Competitions Committee, which has formally approved changes which will lead to two separate tiers of competition on the PGA Tour. But you have to wonder how much of a part he has actually played.

He said: "Over the past eight months, the Future Competition Committee has spent a lot of time on a very important and fundamental question: How do we build the strongest possible version of the PGA Tour?

"This work was never about any one player or person. It was about bringing together different perspectives, having honest, hard conversations and thinking boldly about what is best for the game that we all love."

So what does it all mean?

What Will The PGA Tour Look Like in 2028?

The world's leading golfers will play on something called the PGA Tour's "Championship Series" in tournaments comprising 120-man fields. That indicates that the much-hated Signature Events will be scrapped. They will not be mourned by anybody.

I have long called for a shorter season and we will finally get that. There will be 23 or 24 tournaments that will include the four majors and will run from January to August.

This players will compete for at least $20m at each event and the top 90 at the end of the year will preserve their status.

Beneath this level, a "Challenger Series" will run concurrently with purses worth at least $4m. Any player who wins two of these events in the same season will gain immediate promotion.

And that is where I question what is actually different. Any Korn Ferry player who wins three times in a season is automatically promoted to the PGA Tour and haven’t they always had a cut-off point where players are relegated? It has variously stood at either the top 115 or the top 125.

What About The DP World Tour?

Where does the DP World Tour stand in all of this?

PGA Tour chief executive Brian Rolapp indicated that, by 2028, the DP World Tour is likely to have a role in helping stage international tournaments, including national opens, in the autumn months.

Currently, the top 10 finishers on the DP World Tour's Race to Dubai, who are not already playing in the US, gain PGA Tour cards for the following season. It is not certain whether this will continue.

Will Changes Make Any Difference?

Rolapp is promising to take the PGA Tour to new venues in the United States and said that 10 of 15 courses needed for the 2028 Championship Series, which will all have halfway cuts, have already been identified.

Using a uniform points system, the series will crown an individual champion before the usual end-of-season Tour Championship.

That tournament will become matchplay and move to different locations rather than staying at its traditional home at East Lake in Atlanta. And that surely means it will become an irrelevance.

Although exact details have still to be established, 20 golfers on the lower Challenger Series will earn promotion to the higher tier at the end of a season.

There will also be four to six "last chance" competitions in the autumn for those facing relegation to still preserve Championship status. That does not sound to me like a season that runs from January to August.

And Championship players will not be allowed to compete in Challenger events in the same season.

"We think for the integrity of what we're delivering to our tournament partners that it was important to do that," Rolapp said.

It does, of course, mean those lower events will be potentially bereft of star names and will surely struggle to attract sponsors, spectators and TV coverage.

Rory McIlroy had expressed concern that this track would be "a glorified Korn Ferry Tour" but he has, of course, now changed his tune.

He said: "It is positive step for professional golf. As more details emerge, it is encouraging to see the PGA Tour reaffirming the importance of meritocracy and creating a structure that will serve both players and fans well."

Rolapp insists that the 2028 changes are vital to the tour's future. He said: "If you're competing for media dollars, which is the economic lifeblood of every sport in this country, you need to be constantly improving the product. I think we looked around and we saw what we need to do to increase fans' attention and create more value for our partners and felt this was necessary."

I welcome a return to a full season of tournaments with 36-hole cuts and I am all for a shorter season but I remain to be convinced that this is the way forward or that it improves the product. Time will tell.