PGA Tour to introduce reduced fields, no-cut “designated” tournaments
The PGA Tour has announced a series of format changes for a series of “designated” tournaments in 2024.
The introduction of LIV Golf has forced the PGA Tour to rapidly change. We’ve already seen a raft of changes in terms of the amount of prize money on offer at key tournaments, and now come changes to tournament formats including reduced fields and no-cut “designated” tournaments in 2024.
And while no announcements have been made as to what events will be “designated” the PGA Tour says they will be in addition to the majors and FedEx Cup playoffs.
The 2024 season will feature eight Designated events that will have fields of 70-78 players competing for elevated purses and FedExCup points. These events also will not have a 36-hole cut, guaranteeing that all of the top players will be competing in all four rounds. These eight Designated events will be in addition to the majors, THE PLAYERS and three FedExCup Playoffs events.
And of course, with any announcement or changes to professional golf right now, there comes a series of snarky comments, from fans and supporters of the LIV Golf Tour.
The PGA Tour have copped a lot of flak for the introduction of more”no-cut” events and so instead of the commissioner responding, Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler expressed their opinions – videos below.
“We‘ve always had no-cut events on this Tour. If you think of like the four WGC’s (World Golf Championship) events, you’ve got the three playoffs events, you’ve got the CJ Cup, the Zozo, so there’s precedent there for no-cut events,” McIlroy said on Wednesday.
“The only reason no-cut events are a big deal is because LIV has come along. There is precedent for no-cut events. There’s been no-cut events since I’ve been a member of the Tour and way beyond that as well.”
And of course the always erudite Eamon Lynch was quick to respond, his opening paragraphs in a piece for Golfweek.
Social media’s cesspool of consensus is invariably miles wide and a millimeter deep, so it’s unsurprising that changes to the PGA Tour’s structure announced on Tuesday were breezily compared to that of LIV Golf. It’s a correlation that extends only so far before it veers into lazy and specious.
Leave aside the fact that PGA Tour events aren’t backed by people in the habit of dismembering critics — a crucial point of differentiation, albeit often conveniently overlooked by LIV acolytes — and the contrasts far outnumber the similarities, which are limited to cuts of another kind and the awarding of vast riches.