PGA Tour: promotion and relegation from 2028 a key part of the renewed tour

Currently, the top 10 finishers in the DP World Tour Race to Dubai who did not play in the US earn a PGA Tour card for the following season. It is not certain that this will continue.

“It’s undecided,” Rollup said. “We have had a successful relationship with the DP World Tour including these cards.”

The tour boss, who will replace Jay Monaghan as PGA Tour commissioner next year, added: “That’s one of the many things we’re talking about.”

Rollup has promised to take the PGA Tour to new locations in the United States, and 10 of the 15 courses needed for the 2028 Championship Series have been identified, all of which have been cut in half.

Using a uniform points system, the series crowns an individual champion before the regular season-ending Tour Championship.

That tournament will be a playoff game and instead of staying at its traditional home on East Lake in Atlanta, it will move to different locations.

Although the exact details are still to be established, in the Lower Challenge Series 20 golfers can be promoted to the senior level at the end of a season.

Also, four to six “last chance” tournaments will be held during the autumn, in order to maintain the championship status, which still faces relegation.

And Championship players are not allowed to compete in Challenger events in the same season.

“We think what we offer to our competition partners is loyalty,” Rollup said.

That means those low-profile events could be lost to stardom, and last week at the US Open, Rory McIlroy expressed concern that the track would become the “glorious Korn Boat Tour” of the PGA Tour’s currently low-profile feeder circuit.

But the Masters champion welcomed Tuesday’s announcement, calling it “a great step for professional golf” in a statement.

“As more details come out, it’s encouraging to see the PGA Tour reaffirming the importance of meritocracy and creating a structure that serves both players and fans well,” he added.

McIlroy welcomes overseas events after the main season in partnership with the DP World Tour.

“The commitment to elevate some of these historic international tournaments and national tournaments is incredibly important to the game,” the Northern Irishman said.

Last week, McIlroy said the PGA Tour’s path ahead of the 2022 LIV Tour was “really great.”

But Rollapp says the 2028 changes are critical to the tour’s future.

“If you’re going to compete for media dollars, which is the economic foundation of every sport in this country, you have to constantly improve the product,” he said.

“I think we looked around and saw what we needed to do to increase fan attention and create more value for our partners and we felt that was important.”