This fall, the PGA Tour schedule looks a bit different.
The wraparound season is gone, but that doesn’t mean there will be a shortage of PGA Tour events this fall.
The seven-event slate tees it up next month in Napa, California, at the Fortinet Championship, and concludes in December at the silly season’s PNC Championship in Orlando. In between are the Ryder Cup and a new stop in Mexico.
Tour pros will get two weeks off before it all starts up again. And there’s much more on the line in the fall for players looking to shore up their eligibility for the 2024 season, which begins in January at the Sentry.
Those ranked No. 51 and beyond in the FedEx Cup standings from 2023 will carry their FedEx Cup points from the regular season and first playoff event into the FedEx Cup Fall and continue to accumulate points to finalize eligibility for the 2024 season.
The FedEx Cup Fall will finalize the priority ranking entering the 2024 season, including the top 125 category for those who finished outside the top 70 in the FedEx Cup standings. Standard FedEx Cup points will be issued in the seven events, including 500 points awarded to the winner.
Ten players, not previously eligible, with the most season-long FedEx Cup points through the FedEx Cup Fall, will earn exemptions into the first two signature events that follow the Sentry.
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A win during the fall will earn a two-year Tour exemption, 500 FedEx Cup points, entry to the season-opening Sentry and the Players Championship as well as eligibility into majors that have invited Tour winners in the past.
Here’s a look at the PGA Tour’s 2023 fall schedule, including purses for each event.
Date
Tournament
Course
City
Purse
Sept. 14-17
Fortinet Championship
Silverado Resort and Spa (North Course)
Napa, California
$8.4 million
Oct. 5-8
Sanderson Farms Championship
The Country Club of Jackson
Jackson, Mississippi
$8.2 million
Oct. 12-15
Shriners Children’s Open
TPC Summerlin
Las Vegas
$8.4 million
Oct. 19-22
Zozo Championship
Accordia Golf Narashino Country Club
Chiba, Japan
$8.5 million
Nov. 2-5
World Wide Technology Championship
El Cardonal at Diamante
Los Cabos, Mexico
$8.2 million
Nov. 9-12
Butterfield Bermuda Championship
Port Royal Golf Course
Southampton, Bermuda
$6.5 million
Nov. 16-19
RSM Classic
Sea Island Golf Club (Seaside and Plantation Course)
St. Simons Island, Georgia
$8.4 million
The RSM Classic is the last chance for golfers to earn their 2024 Tour cards.
The 2023 calendar year ends with three silly season events: Tiger’s Hero World Challenge, a new mixed at Tiburon in Florida and the increasingly popular PNC Championship.
The PGA Tour officially released its 2024 schedule Monday.
The season will be a calender-year schedule for the first time since 2012. There are 36 regular-season events, down from 44 this season. There are still three FedEx Cup Playoff events.
The fall part of the schedule will finalize the top 125 for the 2025 season as only the top 70 finishers in the FEC standings earn their way into the postseason, a move that started this season.
The first regular-season event in 2024 is now called The Sentry and will be followed by the Sony Open in Hawaii. The first stateside event will be The American Express in Palm Desert, California.
“We are excited about the roll-out of the PGA Tour’s reimagined schedule and what the season will offer to our fans: a January start with stars competing head-to-head more often, alongside the weekly drama of life-altering moments and the emergence of new stars,” said commissioner Jay Monahan.
The are eight “signature events”, which were initially called designated events but had the moniker “elevated” events during the 2022-23 season.
The eight are:
The Sentry
AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am
The Genesis Invitational
Arnold Palmer Invitational
RBC Heritage
Wells Fargo Championship
The Memorial Tournament
The Travelers Championship
The three player-hosted invitationals – Genesis, APR, Memorial – will have a 36-hole cut; the other five will not.
The Farmers Insurance Open in January in San Diego will again feature a Saturday finish for the third consecutive season.
For the third year, there are three tournaments that will also be part of the DP World Tour’s Race to Dubai: Genesis Scottish Open, the event scheduled for July 11-14 (formerly the Barbasol Championship) and the Barracuda Championship in July.
There is a break in the schedule for the Olympic men’s competition in France in August.
The playoffs are the FedEx St. Jude Championship at TPC Southwind in Memphis, the BMW Championship at Castle Pines Golf Club in Castle Rock, Colorado, for the first time (Castle Pines hosted the International from 1986-2006) and the Tour Championship, which is once again at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta.
The FedEx Cup champion in 2024 will bank a $25 million bonus.
2024 PGA Tour schedule
Tournaments in bold are the designated events.
DATES
TOURNAMENT
Jan. 4-7
The Sentry
Jan. 11-14
Sony Open in Hawaii
Jan. 18-21
The American Express
Jan. 24-27
Farmers Insurance Open
Feb. 1-4
AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am
Feb. 8-11
WM Phoenix Open
Feb. 15-18
Genesis Invitational
Feb. 22-25
Mexico Open at Vidanta
Feb. 29-March 3
The Classic in The Palm Beaches
March 7-10
Arnold Palmer Invitational
March 7-10
Puerto Rico Open (opposite field)
March 14-17
The Players Championship
March 21-24
Valspar Championship
March 28-31
Texas Children’s Houston Open
April 4-7
Valero Texas Open
April 11-14
The Masters
April 18-21
RBC Heritage
April 18-21
Corales Puntacana Championship (opposite field)
April 25-28
Zurich Classic of New Orleans
May 2-5
AT&T Byron Nelson
May 9-12
Wells Fargo Championship
May 9-12
Myrtle Beach Classic (opposite field)
May 16-19
PGA Championship (Valhalla)
May 23-26
Charles Schwab Challenge
May 30-June 2
RBC Canadian Open
June 6-9
The Memorial Tournament
June 13-16
U.S. Open (Pinehurst)
June 20-23
Travelers Championship
June 27-30
Rocket Mortgage Classic
July 4-7
John Deere Classic
July 11-14
Genesis Scottish Open
July 11-14
Opposite-field event TBA (formerly Barbasol)
July 18-21
The Open Championship (Royal Troon)
July 18-21
Barracuda Championship (opposite field)
July 25-28
3M Open
July 29-Aug. 4
Olympics
Aug. 8-11
Wyndham Championship
Aug. 15-18
FedEx St. Jude Championship
TPC Southwind, Memphis
Aug. 22-25
BMW Championship
Castle Pines Golf Club, Castle Rock, Colorado
Tiger Woods is just days into officially being a member of the PGA Tour policy board and already his influence is being felt.
Golfweek has learned that the Tour has reversed field and the Arnold Palmer Invitational, The Memorial hosted by Jack Nicklaus and the Genesis Invitational hosted by Tiger Woods will continue to have a cut. The rest of the limited-field designated events, which reportedly will be renamed “signature events,” will still have no cut as was first announced in March.
The PGA Tour is expected to officially release the 2024 schedule on Tuesday.
This decision has Tiger’s fingerprints all over it. When the plan to introduce limited-field, no-cut events was announced by the Tour in March, Rory McIlroy was quick to defend them at the Players Championship, and attempted to explain how they differed from LIV’s no-cut events.
“There’s precedent for no-cut events [on the PGA Tour],” McIlroy said. “But I think the – like cuts that you have to make to get into those events, so making the playoffs, getting into the top 50, so there’s certain things that you have to do to qualify for those events. I think that’s more than fair to warrant eight events a year that are guaranteeing the players four days.”
Patrick Cantlay, who is serving a term as a player director on the Tour’s policy board, has been a vocal supporter of the concept of no-cut events.
“With it being a limited field, I don’t think it makes sense to have a cut,” he said. “I think there’s real power in knowing that the best players are going to be there all four days no matter what.”
Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy look on from the 11th tee during a practice round prior to the 2023 Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club on April 03, 2023, in Augusta, Georgia. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
But Woods took a different stance. In April at the Masters, when asked how he felt about the majority of the Tour’s biggest events with the exception of the Players Championship becoming limited field (70-to-80 players) and without a cut, he said, “I certainly am pushing for my event to have a cut. I think that maybe the player-hosted events may have cuts. These are things that Jack and I are still in discussion with Jay and the board and the Tour and the rest of the guys. That still is in flux,” he said. “I still think that there needs to be a penalty for not playing well, and to have that — every event shouldn’t be always guaranteed 72 holes. I think that there should be a cut there. But we are trying to figure that out. And you know, what designated events those are going to be, how many are there going to be, that’s still ongoing. But that conversation is still being had.”
In May, Monahan said he had had conversations with Tiger about it and “they were in the middle of figuring it out.” His comments made it sound as if his mind was made up and that he had concluded it was better for the tournaments, sponsors and TV to be able to guarantee all the biggest names for four days, even if they were shooting a million.
By June, McIlroy was waffling. Had Tiger talked some sense into him?
Here’s what McIlroy said at the Memorial: “Could you create some sort of bracket where those tournaments, if the hosts really feel that a cut is important to them, to have a cut, then, you know, that, a 78-man field cut to 50 at the weekend, whatever it is, then I would certainly be OK with that.”
Nicklaus also was asked about whether he wanted a cut at his tournament and he expressed indifference, noting there were pros and cons to both sides.
“I think I’m going to leave that to people that are certainly a lot smarter than I am, which would be Jay and those guys,” he said.
During the Memorial, Andy Pazder, the Chief Tournaments & Competitions Officer at the PGA Tour, said a decision wasn’t set in stone.
“We are having a further conversation about that. I’m aware that certain hosts of designated events have voiced the viewpoint that they’d like to see a cut at their event or some of the designated events,” Pazder said. “We’ve announced that they would be no-cut events but that’s something that if there’s support for a change there, could be that it’s some of the designated events, all of the designated events or none of the designated events [have a cut], we’ll have a conversation around that.”
It’s been a hot-button topic for months with some players claiming designated events under this model will create two separate tours. Reigning Masters champion Jon Rahm has proven to be one of the game’s deep thinkers and he weighed in with a thoughtful response, too, at the Memorial.
“I’ve gone back and forth on this issue. At first, I was an advocate for no cut and the more time has gone by I’ve become an advocate for a cut,” he said. “I think it’s a part of the game and I think it’s an important part of the game, as harsh as it may be to cut out maybe only 20 players. At the flip side, you know, it’s only 20 players that you have to beat to make the cut. So I think it’s a part of it. You earn your way into the weekend and then you earn that win. It’s a part I enjoy and I experienced recently at the PGA.
“I mean, that Friday had a different feel when I was fighting to make the cut. It’s a different type of pressure and you never know what playing good on a Friday to make the cut might ignite towards the weekend. So I think it’s a part of it. It’s a part of the history. If that went away, Tiger making 140-something cuts in a row wouldn’t have the same significance because that would never be broken again. So like I said, I pushed for the no cut and then as time has gone by I actually, I think we should have a cut.”
In the end, the cut lives – at least at three must-watch Tour events and you can bet your bottom dollar that the Tour’s newest board member was heard loud and clear by the commish.
The PGA Tour’s season of change will see a lot of date shifts, some new sponsors, plenty of no-cut events but a lot of familiarity, based on a copy of the 2024 schedule obtained exclusively by Golfweek.
The Tour will return to a calendar-year season for the first time in a decade with 39 regular season events and a further eight in the post-playoffs fall series. Twelve non-major Tour events have designated status, meaning lucrative purses and limited fields. The AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am will become a designated event, as previously reported by Golfweek. The tournament director for the AT&T, Steve John, declined comment until the Tour makes a formal schedule announcement.
Multiple sources say only four of the dozen designated Tour events will feature a 36-hole cut – the Players Championship, the Genesis Invitational, the Memorial Tournament and the Arnold Palmer Invitational. Field sizes at the latter three invitationals will fluctuate with eligibility, but several sources say the maximum will be 80 players with a cut to 50 and ties. The Players remains a full-field event.
There are already no halfway cuts at the season-opening Sentry event – formerly known as the Tournament of Champions – or the three FedEx Cup Playoff stops. In ’24, no players will be leaving after 36 holes at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, the RBC Heritage, the Wells Fargo Championship and the Travelers Championship either. Designated events are mandatory for top stars this season, but under pressure from players the Tour has not made them must-shows for 2024.
The most noteworthy date shift will see the Memorial Tournament, hosted by Jack Nicklaus, held a week before the U.S. Open, having traditionally been staged two weeks ahead of the third major. The Tour is intent on establishing a schedule cadence that would see designated events held in consecutive weeks where possible. That will allow otherwise ineligible players to qualify for designated events via their performances in the preceding regular tournaments.
Dan Sullivan, the executive director of the Memorial Tournament, would not comment on any changes ahead of the official release of the schedule. That unveiling is planned for Aug. 8.
A PGA Tour spokesperson declined to comment on the schedule prior to it being announced.
Two designated events not held back-to-back are the AT&T Pebble Beach and the Genesis Invitational, which are separated by the WM Phoenix Open. The WMPO always finishes on Super Bowl Sunday and will do so again, on Feb. 11. The Memorial will open three-straight designated weeks, followed by the U.S. Open at Pinehurst and the Travelers.
The ’24 schedule shows some sponsor changes and two stops without confirmed support.
The Houston Open, previously a fall event sponsored by Cadence Bank, moves to March under the sponsorship of Texas Children’s, a hospital. The South Korean conglomerate CJ takes over as sponsor of the Byron Nelson stop after AT&T bowed out. Among the tournaments awaiting confirmed sponsors are the first leg of the Florida swing, the Palm Beach Classic, formerly the Honda Classic and a July event opposite the Genesis Scottish Open, sponsored this year by Barbasol.
The schedule does not reflect any changes that might emerge from the PGA Tour’s negotiations with the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund, which is not expected to impact the ’24 lineup. The Olympics will impact things though. Golf medals will be handed out on Aug. 4, which pushes the Wyndham Championship and the FedEx Cup Playoffs back one week. The season concludes at the Tour Championship on Sept. 1.
The fall events, in which players who don’t qualify for the playoffs will jockey for priority in the ’25 season, begin with the Fortinet Championship on Sept. 9.
With an abundance of off-the-course storylines over the past 18 months, many golf fans missed or forgot about some of the changes the PGA Tour instituted last year, some of which will dramatically impact the upcoming fall golf season.
The first of the FedEx Cup playoff events, the FedEx St. Jude Championship, will feature just 70 players this year. In the past there were 125 players in that field after taking the playoffs down from four events to three. Now, it is just 70 players to start, making the next two regular-season tournaments far more important for players than in the past.
And even fewer players at other events
The BMW Championship, the season’s penultimate event, will be down from a field of 70 to a field of just 50.
The result will still be a 30-player field in the Tour Championship, but golfers will have to play better in the first two playoff events to have a shot at the Tour Championship.
No wraparound season
Although fans never took to the wraparound season, there really wasn’t much of an answer for how to handle the issue.
There will still be tournaments in September, October and November, and they will still count as official PGA Tour victories for the winners. But the fall events will no longer be part of the chase for the FedEx Cup. Instead, golfers trying to improve their status for the 2024 season will use the fall to chase status.
Some stars, but not many
Although the fields will be weaker than the regular season, occasionally some big names find their way into the field.
From time to time in the past several years some of the Tour’s biggest names have not only shown up in the fall but won some events as well, like Rory McIlroy at the CJ Cup last October. So we should still get a sprinkling of big names in the coming months after the playoffs and the Ryder Cup.
The PGA Tour is headed to the Beehive State for the first time in more than 60 years.
The Tour and Black Desert Resort announced on Friday a new tournament, the Black Desert Championship, set to debut in 2024 during the FedExCup Fall. As part of a four-year agreement, the Black Desert Championship will mark the first PGA Tour event contested in Utah in more than six decades. A celebratory kickoff announcing the event was held in Greater Zion with Utah Governor Spencer Cox in attendance along with representatives from Black Desert Resort.
The Black Desert Championship will be part of the PGA Tour’s 2024 FedExCup Fall as a full-field event. Tournament dates will be announced at a later time. Black Desert will also host an LPGA Tour event in 2025.
“In introducing the PGA Tour – and the LPGA the following year – to a new market, we look forward to collaborating with the Black Desert Resort team in their vision for professional golf in the Greater Zion community. Competitively, our members will enjoy the challenges and incredible views that define the Black Desert Golf Course,” said PGA Tour executive vice president Tyler Dennis.
Played against the backdrop of southern Utah’s red rock mountains, the par-72 Black Desert Golf Course was designed by Phil Smith and the late Tom Weiskopf, the final design from the World Golf Hall of Fame 2024 inductee.
The PGA Tour first appeared in Utah in 1930 when World Golf Hall of Fame member Harry “Lighthorse” Cooper won the Salt Lake Open. Seven years later, the Tour returned to Salt Lake City in 1937, when Al Zimmerman won the first of back-to-back Utah Open titles.
The Tom Weiskopf/Phil Smith-designed Black Desert Resort Golf Course opened in May of 2023 in Ivins, Utah. (Courtesy of Black Desert Golf Club/Brian Oar)
The historic Western Open, now known as the BMW Championship, made a stop in the Beehive State a decade later, when seven-time Tour winner Johnny Palmer captured the 1947 tournament in Salt Lake City.
In 1948, Utah hosted the Utah Open Invitational, where Lloyd Mangrum edged George Fazio in a playoff. The event was played three more times (1958, 1960, 1963), with the 1963 edition – won by Tommy Jacobs by a stroke over Don January – the last time the Tour played in the state.
While the PGA Tour returns to Utah for the first time since 1963, the Beehive State has been home to the Korn Ferry Tour’s Utah Championship presented by Zions Bank since the Tour’s inaugural season in 1990. Contested at Oakridge Country Club since 2017, past champions of the tournament include John Daly (1990), Zach Johnson (2003), Brendon Todd (2008) and Cameron Champ (2018).
The 2024 Black Desert Championship will be televised on Golf Channel, Peacock and PGA Tour Live on ESPN+.
Just a handful of months after putting the final pile of dirt on the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play, a fellow Texas tournament has slid back into the Austin event’s slot in the PGA Tour’s spring schedule.
Tour officials announced on Wednesday that the Houston Open will be held March 28-31, marking the first time since 2018 the event will be in the spring rotation. The Valero Texas Open in San Antonio is expected to maintain its position as the following week’s event, leading into the Masters.
According to an announcement from the Tour and Astros Golf Foundation, the tournament has also secured a long-term agreement with Texas Children’s, the largest pediatric and women’s health system in the nation. The agreement is for five years.
“We are excited to announce our partnership with Texas Children’s as the title sponsor for the Houston Open,” said Jim Crane, Houston Astros Owner and Chairman. “We couldn’t have asked for a better partner as we continue our mission of giving back to the greater Houston community. Aligning their values with the efforts of our Astros Golf Foundation provides a special opportunity for both organizations to continue to give back to our community, to grow the game of golf, and to provide a platform to help those most in need.”
Memorial Park had always been the crown jewel of the Houston public golf scene. Originally built as a nine-hole course in 1912, an extensive redesign by John Bredemus (who had co-founded the Texas Professional Golfers Association in 1922) led to its “official” 18-hole opening in 1936.
Tony Finau celebrates after winning the 2022 Cadence Bank Houston Open. (Photo: Erik Williams-USA TODAY Sports)
From 1947 to 1963, the course hosted a PGA Tour event 14 times. Arnold Palmer won it once and Jack Nicklaus had a second-place finish. Famously, 1965 PGA Championship winner Dave Marr asked that his ashes be spread at Memorial Park — even though he never won there, he credited the track for shaping his career.
“On behalf of the PGA Tour, we are thankful to Texas Children’s for their commitment to one of the Tour’s legacy events in the Houston Open, a tournament that dates back to 1946,” said PGA Tour President Tyler Dennis. “The Houston Open has played a significant role in shaping the PGA Tour’s history through its competitive lineage with golf’s greats playing and winning the event as well as an unwavering commitment to bettering the community. This partnership between the Astros Golf Foundation and Texas Children’s has the opportunity to take the tournament to new heights, most notably in its ability to impact the lives of families in Houston and throughout Texas.”
Crane is an investor in Escalante Golf, which staged two LIV Golf events in the upstart circuit’s inaugural year – Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club in Oregon and The International in Massachusetts – and then a third LIV event this season at The Gallery Golf Club in Marana, Arizona.
Crane, along with Giles Kibbe, senior vice president and general counsel for the Astros and president of the Astros Golf Foundation, played in the pro-am at LIV’s Boston event.
Houston is one of the largest markets in the U.S., and the Tour certainly didn’t want to lose it. Despite the Houston Open being successful going up against football and on the heels of a steady stream of baseball playoff games in recent years, Crane reportedly was no longer willing to support a golf tournament in the fall.
Tony Finau captured the Houston last November, and the event will not be staged in 2023 as it prepares for its return to the spring. The tournament will be televised on NBC, Golf Channel and Peacock, and PGA Tour Live on ESPN+.
Golfweek has learned that AT&T has asked out of its sponsorship of the AT&T Byron Nelson after this year.
A search for a replacement is well underway to assume the title of the Tour’s long-running Dallas event, which is being played this week at TPC Craig Ranch in the suburb of McKinney, Texas. According to multiple sources, the Tour had Raytheon Technologies, one of the largest aerospace and defense manufacturers in the world, ready to sign on the dotted line but Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan nixed the deal at the last minute because the company sells missiles to Saudi Arabia.
In August, the U.S. State Department approved weapon sales to Saudi Arabia, who were expected to buy 300 Raytheon Technologies-made MIM-104E Patriot missiles for more than $3 billion.
Much of the public outrage over the launch of LIV Golf, the upstart league which has signed several prominent Tour pros and is playing 14 events this year many of them in the U.S., has been that it is almost exclusively funded by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. The wealth fund, organized in 1971 as a means for the Saudi Arabian government to invest in various projects and companies, has been estimated to be worth over $650 billion.
The Saudi involvement had led to accusations of “sportswashing,” a term used to describe the use of games and athletes to cleanse an image and launder the reputation of a country while cloaking repression and authoritarian rule. For the Tour to knowingly jump into bed with Raytheon given their business dealings with the Saudis would have left the Tour open to a public relations hit.
A general view of the 18th green during the second round of the AT&T Byron Nelson golf tournament. Mandatory Credit: Raymond Carlin III-USA TODAY Sports
“The optics were not good,” said one tournament director who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “I give Jay credit for stepping in and making the right call.”
When asked last week at the Wells Fargo Championship in Charlotte to comment on his role in the title sponsorship search and squashing a deal, Monahan said that the Tour doesn’t comment on potential sponsors.
“That would be a no comment,” he said.
A call to AT&T Byron Nelson tournament director Jon Drago was not returned.
AT&T has been a major backer of golf in the U.S., currently sponsoring the Pebble Beach Pro-Am, the Masters and Jordan Spieth. AT&T became the Nelson’s title sponsor in 2015, replacing printer-maker HP, at which time it gave up its title sponsorship of the AT&T National at Congressional. Randall Stephenson was AT&T chairman and CEO at the time and also an independent director on the Tour’s policy board, but Stephenson stepped down with the company in 2021.
If a new sponsor comes on board for next year, it will mark the tournament’s sixth title since 2000 to share the marquee with Nelson, a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame and local legend.
Since 1968, the tournament, which is operated by the Salesmanship Club, has raised $172.5 million for Momentous Institute, making it the most financially successful charity on the Tour.
The host site of the Myrtle Beach Classic features one of the most extreme doglegs in tournament golf.
The PGA Tour announced Wednesday it will in 2024 launch a new full-field tournament, the Myrtle Beach Classic in South Carolina. An opposite-field event to be played the same week as one of the Tour’s designated events, the new tournament will be played at the Dunes Beach and Golf Club.
Visit Myrtle Beach will sponsor the new event and offer a purse of $3.9 million with 300 FedEx Cup points going to the winner. A four-year agreement was announced, but the dates of the event were not. The full 2024 Tour schedule is yet to be determined.
“We are thrilled to announce the debut of the Myrtle Beach Classic, an exciting new playing opportunity for our members in one of our country’s most recognized and visited destinations,” PGA Tour President Tyler Dennis said in a media release announcing the news. “With its incredible passion for golf, the Myrtle Beach community is a natural fit to bring this tournament to life. We look forward to partnering with Visit Myrtle Beach for a first-class tournament at a championship venue in Dunes Golf and Beach Club.”
A new tournament in South Carolina is set to debut in 2024 ⛳️
The Myrtle Beach Classic will be one of two stops in the Palmetto State next year.
The course at Dunes Golf and Beach Club was designed by Robert Trent Jones Sr., and nine holes (the back nine) opened in 1949. It was renovated by Jones’ son, Rees Jones, in 2013. It is ranked by Golfweek’s Best as the No. 4 public-access layout in the state, and it comes in at No. 143 on Golfweek’s Best list of all classic courses in the U.S. The course is best known for its brilliant, often elevated and tilted greens, many of which feature brisk runoffs in multiple directions, confounding players on approach shots.
The layout also features one of the most extreme examples of a dogleg in golf. The par-5 13th boomerangs around a lake, almost turning back on itself as it juts to the right. Jones Sr. called it one of his best examples of “heroic architecture,” and it will be interesting to see how Tour pros tackle the hole.
The club hosted the PGA Tour Champions’ season-ending Charles Schwab Cup Championship from 1994 to 1999, and it was the site of PGA Tour Q-School Finals in 1973, with Ben Crenshaw taking the medalist spot. Among other top-tier events and national championships, it also hosted the 1962 U.S. Women’s Open, won by Murle Lindstrom.
The Tour noted that the Myrtle Beach Classic will be one of its two stops in the Palmetto State in 2024, along with the RBC Heritage at Harbour Town Golf Links, an event that made its debut in 1969.
The Dell Technologies Match Play is dead, at least for the foreseeable future.
AUSTIN, Texas — It’s official. The Dell Technologies Match Play is dead, at least for the foreseeable future.
Jordan Uppleger, vice president and executive director of PGA Tour championship management, made the announcement to the media on Monday at Austin Country Club.
“We’re formally announcing today that the 2023 World Golf Championship Dell Technologies Match Play will be the final playing of the event here at Austin Country Club, and not be included on the 2024 calendar or moving forward,” Uppleger said.
“The event has had an incredible run here at Austin Country Club.”
“I was told you had to have three main components to have a successful event, you had to have an active title sponsor, an engaging country club and a supporting community and client base,” he added. “And there is no doubt that this event has exceeded all of those expectations as we’ve been here since 2016.”
As part of the announcement, Uppleger added that no match-play event will be included on next year’s PGA Tour schedule.
In February, Golfweek reported that the event would be shuttered after this year’s playing. Its spot in the 2024 schedule, which is typically in late March on the back end of the Florida Swing, is expected to be filled by the Cadence Bank Houston Open, unless it prefers a date in the late April/early May timeframe instead as part of a shuffling of events.
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On Monday, Uppleger said the Tour would look to Austin again if the situation was right in the future. During the tournament’s seven-year run, the WGC event has been one of the hottest tickets on Tour, and with the picturesque Pennybacker Bridge framing the Colorado River, the setting at Austin Country Club has become among the circuit’s most indelible.
ACC has hosted the Match Play since 2016 when Dell became the title sponsor. At the time, the World Golf Championships were considered the highest-ranking tournaments in golf behind the four majors and the Players Championship, the Tour’s flagship event.
“I think you’ve seen this throughout our history. Look at the markets we’ve been in, and we’ve had to exit markets for certain reasons,” Uppleger said. “And obviously, we would look at Austin, Texas, in the future. It’s not on the ’24 calendar, but clearly look at the success that we’ve had here. There’s no doubt that our team would be looking at that.”
