The PGA Tour will implement more significant changes to its schedule starting next season, and LIV Golf is once again claiming credit for the shift.
According to a report from Eamon Lynch of Golfweek, the PGA Tour on Tuesday night ratified a change to the 2024 schedule that will affect designated events. For these designated events, 36-hole cuts will be eliminated, and the size of fields will be reduced.
The fields for the designated events, which were introduced this season with minimum purses of $20 million, will be reduced to between 70 and 78 golfers. The top 50 players who qualify for the BMW Championship during the previous season’s FedEx Cup playoffs along and the top 10 players not otherwise eligible from the current FedEx Cup points standings will be invited to take part.
“The idea is we want top players and hot players,” Rory McIlroy said Wednesday of the changes, noting that tournament sponsors are going to be more willing to pay with assurances that top golfers will be playing all four rounds rather than potentially missing the cut.
One of the major ways LIV Golf differs from the PGA Tour is that tournaments are three rounds and there are no cuts. The Saudi-backed league took another swipe at the PGA Tour after Wednesday’s news surfaced.
Imitation is the greatest form of flattery. Congratulations PGA Tour. Welcome to the future.#LIVGolf
— LIV Golf (@livgolf_league) March 1, 2023
“Imitation is the greatest form of flattery. Congratulations PGA Tour. Welcome to the future,” LIV Golf tweeted.
There is no question that the PGA Tour has implemented changes in response to LIV Golf’s founding. Golfers on the PGA Tour now have opportunities to make significantly more money than they did before LIV came along. LIV CEO Greg Norman threw a jab at the PGA Tour over that last season.
