Ahead of the the PGA Tour’s season-ending Tour Championship this week, they have announced the format for the season finale in the new-look 2028 season.
And matchplay fans rejoice because it’s been confirmed that both of the final two weeks will feature head-to-head formats.
The PGA Tour’s social channels also released the video below which simply and effectively breaks down how the Championship Series and Challenger Series will work, and how the eventual Tour champion will be crowned after the aforementioned final two events.
Breaking down how the @TOURChamp is changing in 2028, with @_SportsBall_. pic.twitter.com/VTPDfArdxa
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) August 25, 2026
The leading 90 players in the Championship Series’ rankings will contest the Championship Series Finale, with a tournament winner and the season-long points winner identified after 72 holes of strokeplay.
Then, week two sees the top 32 players from the rankings at the conclusion of the Championship Series Finale move to a different venue where they will be split into eight groups of four – in a format similar to the traditional FIFA World Cup prior to this year’s expanded World Cup – where each player plays the other three in his group and the top two at the end of the week advance to the final week.
There, on a different golf course again, it will be straight knockout matchplay over four days leaving the two undefeated players to battle it out to be crowned Tour Champion.
The reduced field size and reduced infrastructure required for the final two events means that golf courses – many of them iconic golf courses – incapable of hosting a full-field or even reduced-field PGA Tour event could be back on the rotation.
The news has been favourably received on social media platforms and media outlets alike, and the only criticism this writer can level at the PGA Tour is to ask why it took so long – 20 years and counting and over $1 billion in FedEx Cup prizemoney – to try the obvious.
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