No PGA Tour golf, no downside with this week’s version unpacking the circuit’s plan to chop area sizes and taking part in alternatives, and a breakdown of the autumn schedule’s future.
Made Reduce
A senior second. With subsequent week’s PGA Tour Champions finale in Phoenix, Arizona, looming, and a uncommon bye week for the PGA Tour, it’s apropos to acknowledge one of many fall’s greatest feel-good tales.
Tim O’Neal’s path to his breakthrough victory on the over-50 circuit had taken him to just about each nook {of professional} golf and when the 52-year-old began the ultimate spherical on the Dominion Vitality Charity Basic two weeks in the past, he was eight years faraway from his final victory on any main tour.
“I don’t know. It was simply the way it was presupposed to occur, I assume,” mentioned O’Neal, who received his first PGA Tour Champions occasion with a closing 65 on the Nation Membership of Virginia to qualify for subsequent week’s Charles Schwab Cup Championship.
For a participant who spent his whole profession toiling on the cusp of the foremost leagues, O’Neal’s breakthrough is the autumn’s greatest story.
Made Reduce-Did Not End (MDF)
A brand new period. Tuesday’s memo outlining the proposed plan to chop area sizes at almost each Tour occasion together with a corresponding discount in unconditional memberships was acquired with blended critiques, however there have been some who embraced the final thought of the plan, if not the execution.
“We should always have performed this a very long time in the past,” mentioned one Tour participant.
The very best instance of how bloated the Tour membership had change into might be traced to the circuit’s precedence rankings, which set the order for a way fields are crammed. There are at the moment 44 classes on that checklist, from main champions to “veteran members.” Underneath the proposed plan, that might be decreased to 23 classes with an general discount in full memberships of about 20 p.c.
If accepted later this month on the 12 months’s ultimate coverage board assembly, the plan would lower the variety of full exemptions to the highest 100 — down from the highest 125 —from the earlier season’s FedExCup factors checklist; the highest 20 — down from the highest 30 — from the earlier season’s Korn Ferry Tour factors checklist; and in addition scale back the variety of sponsor exemptions and open qualifying spots at some occasions.
The purpose behind the modifications was to search out “splendid area sizes” which might enhance tempo of play, storytelling and maintain occasions on schedule. The plan would, based on the memo, additionally present a extra degree taking part in area for many who do have full standing.
The Tour’s transfer to enhance the product within the face of competitors from LIV Golf and the introduction of personal fairness into the skilled sport is each comprehensible and admirable, however tectonic sifts just like the proposed plan nearly at all times include unintended penalties.
