Change is coming to the PGA Tour in 2023 – for better or worse.
The three biggest changes for the coming year will be the debut of elevated events, the end of the wrap-around season and a re-invented fall season that ends with a Q-School with PGA Tour cards on the line.
Let’s start with the elevated events, which is a direct response to the challenge put forth by LIV Golf. When the top players on the PGA Tour met at the BMW Championship in Wilmington in late August, they came to the conclusion that the best players need to play more often against each other. As a result, they agreed to commit to play in 13 elevated events in 2023 plus the four majors – they are allowed to miss only one if they want to receive their Player Impact Program bonus money.
The Tour always has had a tiered system, where certain tournaments were already elevated in the minds of the players and attracted better fields – due to larger purses or FedEx Cup points, limited fields/no cuts, better courses, prestige, etc. – but now it is more clear cut in black and white. The RBC Heritage knows it will have its best field – probably ever in 2023 – the Honda Classic? Not so much.
Having the best players committed to playing in the same events is pretty much the dream for Tour commish Jay Monahan, TV execs and tournament directors at the elevated events, who can now promote their presence. Fans will be delighted to see the best going at it more often. But on the flip side, the job just got much tougher for the tournament directors of non-elevated events and there could be some weeks that fields may be even more watered down than in the past.
The 2022-23 wrap-around season will end as usual with the FedEx Cup being handed out in late August at the Tour Championship. But instead of the top 125 qualifying for the first playoff event in Memphis, only the top-70 players on the Fed Ex Cup points list after the final regular-season event (the Wyndham Championship) will advance to the playoffs. That’s a significant change and will force players to play more if they are on the outside looking in. In previous years, 70 was the cutdown for the BMW, the second playoff event, but that one will be reduced to the top 50 in 2023. No change for East Lake: the top 30 from there move on to the Tour Championship in Atlanta.
It’s still unclear how the fall portion of the schedule will work, but there will be no FedEx Cup points for the new season. This should appease exempt players for the 2024 season and allow them to take time off or compete elsewhere such as the DP World Tour without fear of falling behind in the FedEx Cup race.
Those that don’t qualify for the playoffs will have to play in the fall – it’s still unclear how many events will constitute the fall schedule – and battle it out for position Nos. 71-125. Expect weaker fields but also great theater as players fight to regain playing privileges for the 2024 year, which will run from January through the Tour Championship in late August. Expect the Tour to lay out how this is going to work sometime in the first quarter of 2023.
The last change to look forward to is that starting in 2023, the top five finishers and ties at Q-school will now earn PGA Tour status for the following season. This marks the first time since 2012 that Q-school will provide a path directly to the big leagues. This should be attractive to top collegiate talent that turn pro and will provide another route to playing for Tour riches without spending time on the Korn Ferry Tour.
