PGA Tour announces Championship, Challenger Series for 2028

The new PGA Tour schedule will include a newly formed two-tiered schedule starting in 2028 with top players on the PGA Tour Championship Series and a secondary PGA Tour Challenger Series.

Tour CEO Brian Rolapp revealed the format at a June 23 news conference at the TPC River Highlands, the site of this week’s Travelers Championship.

While outlining how it will work, Rolapp did not disclose what tournaments will be impacted, saying the specific events for each series will be unveiled during the first quarter of 2027.

The Championship Series will be comprised of 23 or 24 events including The Players Championship, four majors and revamped postseason that will feature match play. The regular season will include 72-hole stroke play tournaments with cuts, and purses of at least $20 million. Field sizes will average around 120 players. There will be no sponsor exemptions.

“We feel very confident that we are building an economic model that can support those purses,” Rolapp said. “We wouldn’t have announced them if we didn’t. So we feel very good about those purse levels, and we feel very good about the economic growth of the PGA Tour that this new model will produce.”

The Challenger Series will include at least 20 events, with fields of 144 players and purses of at least $4 million. Players on the Championship Series will not be allowed to play in Challenger Series events. Players can be elevated from the Challenger Series to the Championship Series after their first two Challenger Series victories, or by being among the top 20 players at the end of the season.

All of which means the stakes are huge for tournaments like the Cognizant Classic in the Palm Beaches. Being part of the Championship Series brings legitimacy with elite fields and high rewards.

Being part of the Challenger Series means secondary status and a difficult sell, especially for an event played at PGA National in what many consider the leading golf market in the country.

Rolapp said the Tour had 10 of the 15 Championship Series regular season events — those that have fallen under Signature Events in recent years — lined up for 2028. He did not disclose which ones.

“The remaining five spots will either be filled by existing events or new markets,” Rolapp said.

Cognizant has seen what has happened in recent years being in a difficult spot in the schedule that has led to several elite players skipping the tournament. The event has become a shell of what it was during its heyday in the mid-2010s when it comes to the field, the energy and impact on the community.

Rolapp disputed Rory McIlroy’s claim that Challenger Series events will be “glorified Korn Ferry” events.

“We are just organized now in a more simple understanding competitively so our fans can understand it, our partners know what they’re getting as far as value,” Rolapp said. “So we think we’ve just organized the same tour into a much more interesting and competitive system.

“If you look at the Challenger Series events, they’ll be at venues you recognize. They’ll be for healthy purses, which we announced today. They’ll include a subset of the same 200 and change players that we have today. That is much different than what the Korn Ferry Tour is today.”

It has not been determined how the 144-player Challenger Series will be filled but it will be in place by the end of the calendar year so players will know exactly what they are playing for in 2027 in regards to their status for 2028.

Cognizant will be held February 25-28 at PGA National, its 21st year at the resort, and once again is in an unfavorable spot in the schedule as a non Signature Event.

With a complete overhaul coming, the 2027 schedule is not an indication of what we’ll see in 2028.

“This structure creates more compelling competition for fans and greater opportunity for players, bringing stronger value to our partners and the ability to further our philanthropic mission,” Rolapp said. “We have made meaningful progress, but our work is far from finished. We know the best days of the PGA Tour are ahead of us.”

Tom D’Angelo is a senior sports columnist and reporter for The Palm Beach Post. He can be reached at tdangelo@pbpost.com.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Cognizant Classic awaits fate under PGA Tour overhaul