The PGA Tour, many tournaments without cut

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The PGA Tour will introduce a revolution in the 2024 calendar, returning to the old annual format, starting in January and not in September as has been done in the last decade, adding several tournaments with reduced participation and without cutoffs, and allowing a real coexistence with the DP World Tour, which will acquire value from September, when the FedEx Cup is over.

Pga Tour, news

According to Golfweek, the calendar will consist of 47 tests, 39 until the final outcome, and eight after the appointment of The Tour Championship, which will translate into a true Fall Series, in which the only thing that will really be at stake will be permanence.

in the great golf circuit of the planet. The number of designated tournaments, with large prizes as has already happened in 2023, will rise to 12, they will be mandatory for the stars, and only four of them will have a cut: The Players, Genesis, Memorial and the Arnold Palmer.

The last three will likely be reduced to 80-player courses, with a cutoff after 36 holes to 50. The AT&T at Pebble Beach, the most glamorous proam in the world, will reach this category. In the draft shown there is no room for any LIV Golf tournament, which together with the presence of Tiger Woods now on the PGA Tour board, shows that the positions are much further away from what could be imagined when two months ago announced the principle of agreement between both entities without counting on the players.

It is understood that the rearrangement of the calendar, on the other hand, strengthens the DP World Tour, participated by the circuit led by Jay Monahan, which in 2023 has inflated several million for premise. The old European Circuit will have a clear horizon between September and November, a period in which tournaments such as the BMW Championship, the Spanish Open, the Irish Open, the Dubai final.

Three of the big four Major tournaments take place over eight weeks, between June and August. In the past, this has threatened to make the remaining two and a half months of the season uninteresting, as some of the best players decide to compete less thereafter.

The solution was the introduction of a new type of leaderboard, the FedEx Cup. From January to mid-August, players compete in tournaments that form the "regular season" and earn points towards the FedEx Cup, as well as prize money.

. At the end of the regular season, the top 144 players in the FedEx Cup standings qualify for the "playoffs", four tournaments that take place between mid-August and mid-September. The number of participants in these tournaments is progressively reduced from 144 to 120 to 70 and eventually to the 30 that traditionally participate in the Tour Championship.

Further points towards the FedEx Cup can be earned in these tournaments. At the end of the Tour Championship, whoever has accumulated the most points is the season champion. To implement this new system, the PGA Tour had to make significant changes to the traditional calendar.