Golf Club Fitting Specialist

PGA Tour outlines two-circuit system to begin in 2028. Original article can be found here. The PGA Tour released membership categories for the new Championship Series and Challenger Series on Tuesday. An emphasis on making the cut, ranked finishes and victories are the foundation of the new points system and Tour CEO Brian Rolapp's goal of a transparent meritocracy leading to a season champion. "From the beginning, we set out to preserve the meritocracy that makes our sport unique by creating a system where performance dictates opportunity," Rolapp said in a statement Tuesday. "Through new eligibility criteria and supporting pathways into the PGA Tour, the new competitive model is designed to reward excellence and ensure there is always a clear path for top performers at every stage of their career." In 2028, two concurrent series will hold tournaments: the PGA Tour Championship Series and a pathway series known as the Challenger Series. Golfers cannot compete in tournaments on both series. The top 70 golfers in the final 2027 FedEx Cup points list as of the Tour Championship are guaranteed Championship Series membership for 2028, as do the top 95 players in the final points list. The top 90 players retaining their Championship Series membership and 20 golfers promoted from the Challenger Series will be eligible for Championship Series events along with any two-time Challenger Series winner. Exemptions will be granted to players who don't meet those qualifications but win one of the four majors, The Players and select Championship Series tournaments. Within the new points system, winners of receive 300 points, runners-up get 200 and third-place finishers earn 150. The same points are awarded for Championship Series events, the four majors and The Players. "For fans, this means a clear understanding of what is at stake during each PGA Tour competition, whether that is at an event or across a season," Rolapp said. The field size of Challenger Series events will be 144 golfers. The top 20 finishers on the Korn Ferry Tour receive two-year membership to the Challenger Series. Starting with the 2028 season, 20 golfers can be promoted from the Challenger Series with automatic elevation to the Championship Series for players with two Challenger Series wins, winners of any Championship Series events, including The Players and four majors, who will receive exemptions for the current season and next two seasons. Golfers can be relegated from the Championship Series to the Challenger Series. However, a four-year exemption on the Challenger Series would be granted to any player who wins a Championship Series event. The PGA Tour also plans to grant a single-use exemption for 2028 only for players who finish 2027 in the top 50 on the PGA Tour career money list at the end of the season. To be eligible, however, a winner must have played at least 15 tour events in 2027. New end-of-season "last chance" events offer an opportunity for players to secure one of three available cards for the next Championship Series season. At least four tournaments are planned in this late fall format, according to Rolapp. Feeder programs to the Challenger Series remain intact. PGA Tour University's No. 1 golfer after the NCAA Championships will be eligible for the Challenger Series for the upcoming and following seasons. And the top five finishers from Q School qualifying earn a spot on the Challenger Series. -Field Level Media Posted by field Level. yourNEWS is a hyper-local social news and advertising platform. Its monetization model empowers Citizen Journalists to report the news in local and national markets. (Note: Articles may not be original content. Reference byline for original source.)

PGA Tour adds first-ever investor relations executive. September 15, 2026 6:30am The PGA Tour has hired John Fizer as its senior vice president of investor relations, the organization will announce on Tuesday. The former Wall Streeter will report to the tour's president of enterprise operations, Andy Weitz. In the newly created role, Fizer will focus on "developing the education and communication around the player equity program," he said. That initiative offers players the opportunity to earn ownership stakes in PGA Tour Enterprises, the for-profit entity that houses the PGA Tour's commercial assets, such as sponsorships and broadcast rights. That group now encompasses almost 200 tour members, holding equity that is collectively worth more than $1 billion, according to a January press release. The player equity program was created in 2024, following a $1.5 billion investment into PGA Tour Enterprises by Strategic Sports Group, a consortium that includes John Henry, Steve Cohen, Arthur Blank and other notable North American sports owners collectively worth at least an estimated $51 billion, according to Forbes. The deal notably capitalized the PGA Tour while it was exploring the framework or a joint commercial venture with LIV Golf and the DP World Tour, though the arrangement was never consummated. SSG reportedly received an 11.62% stake that valued the commercial entity at $12.9 billion, according to Golf.com. Fizer will also play a role in facilitating the PGA Tour's dialogue with its institutional investors. "I think they're folks who have fantastic track records, not only in sports, but in financial services, industrials and different types of businesses," Fizer said. "So I think a lot of them really view the tour through the long-term lens and are really excited about what the tour can potentially build and some of the momentum that the tour now has on the back of LIV." As LIV Golf finds itself going through a tumultuous turnaround - the breakaway circuit voluntarily filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last week - the PGA Tour has seemingly ramped up its efforts to capture a larger piece of the overall sports pie. The tour's CEO, Brian Rolapp, announced in June a slew of changes to the competition that will roll out in 2028, including a promotion and relegation structure, larger prize purses and match play events. It's unclear whether the PGA Tour will seek more money to supercharge that further. Fizer said he didn't have "much insight when it comes to the long-term plan to raise additional capital" and "right now, the players in SSG are really the core of the investors, and quite frankly, I don't know if that's going to change in the foreseeable future." The previous deal reportedly left SSG with the potential to infuse another $1.5 billion into PGA Tour Enterprises. Fizer, a Rutgers-educated lawyer, previously worked in compliance at Barclays and Goldman Sachs, and as a wealth advisor at J.P. Morgan Private Bank. More recently, he started his own boutique investment advisory firm, Mill Hill. Before entering the financial services sector, Fizer captained the men's golf team at the University of Virginia. He also competed professionally on developmental tours. The 43-year-old agreed to come aboard after a months-long process that started when he was approached by the PGA Tour, which retained Excel Search & Advisory. Fizer, who is from Trenton, New Jersey and has lived just outside New York City for the last 13 years, is in the process of relocating to Jacksonville, near the tour's headquarters in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. The move corresponds with another pair of key hirings. The PGA Tour also announced on Tuesday that it has added Under Armour and Overtime veteran Tyler Rutstein as its chief marketing officer and brought in Mike Mahar, formerly of Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, to be its chief technology officer.

Tiger Woods excited by new matchplay format for Tour Championship. Tiger Woods has given a thumbs-up to the PGA Tour's new format for its Tour Championship, which will feature a 32-man match play competition. PGA Tour chief executive Brian Rolapp announced overnight (Australian time) ahead of the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta that the new season-ending format will begin in 2028, featuring the top 90 golfers in a strokeplay event to determine the 32 who will advance to the first of two matchplay rounds. "The conclusion of the season should be worthy of the journey it takes to get there," Woods wrote on X. "Today's announcement is a result of the hard work and passion of our players. Excited to usher in a new era of matchplay on the PGA Tour." The FedExCup Playoffs currently are contested over three weeks, with fields of 70, 50 and 30 players competing in strokeplay events. But in the planned new format, the first week will feature a group stage, dividing 32 golfers into eight groups of four for head-to-head match play. The top two in each group will then move on to a new course in a second-week finale. In that final week, the remaining 16 players will compete in four rounds of matchplay, with the two finalists battling to be crowned the tour champion. "From the beginning, the goal of the Future Competition Committee was to create an easier-to-follow competitive model for our fans with greater consequence and a stronger season-long narrative," Rolapp said. "Throughout this process, Australian Golf Digest listened carefully to its fans, players and partners. One message came through clearly: the culmination of its season should be worthy of the journey it takes to get there. "The result is a season-ending structure that rewards excellence over the course of the year while building toward a reimagined Tour Championship. We are creating something different, something distinct within professional golf that can resonate far beyond it."