When Jay Monahan announced the plan for the makeup of the PGA Tour and its events starting in 2024, it confirmed what many in the golf world had suspected for weeks:

Beginning next season, the PGA Tour will essentially be split into 2 groups. 

The stars will play in all the significant events for big prize money with many of the events being limited-field, no cut, guaranteed paydays. The rest of the Tour (the “rank-and-file” if you will) will be left with the scraps, filling out the rest of the weeks on the calendar playing in what will now be the old Tour schedule with the hopes of stringing a few good weeks together in order to get a seat at the new elevated event table. 

The timing for the announcement was ironic considering the PLAYERS Championship is supposed to be the tournament of, well, the players that make up the membership on the PGA Tour. It was also ironic considering how the week played out. 

Sure, one of the stars won this week in Scottie Scheffler, and big names graced the leaderboard throughout the 4 days of the tournament, but some of the more exciting things that happened at TPC Sawgrass this week involved guys that, under the new rules, likely would have never had the chance to tee it up this week in the first place. 

Let’s take a look at some examples:

Hayden Buckley

On Thursday morning, Hayden Buckley did one of the hardest things in golf: he made a hole-in-one on the par 3 island green at TPC Sawgrass. With that ace at 17, he became only the 11th golfer to make a hole-in-one at the famed hole (two more golfers would ace 17 before the week was done). 

Buckley currently ranks 110th in the OWGR. Under the current PGA Tour system he finished his 2021-2022 Tour season 104th in the FedEx Cup. Under the new rules, Buckley would have likely needed to have either won a non-elevated event or put together a string of top-10 finishes to have even had the opportunity to swing that pitching wedge at 17 on Thursday morning. 

Tom Hoge

Tom Hoge was all but ready to head home Friday afternoon. He had even gone so far as to book a flight on American Airlines from Jacksonville to Dallas. A weather delay Friday afternoon and the cut line moving when the 2nd round finished Saturday morning resulted in Hoge having to cancel that flight because he was playing the weekend.

With a new outlook, Hoge went out on Saturday morning and shot a 62, a new course record at TPC Sawgrass.

But, under the new “rules” of the Tour, would he have even been playing the event in the first place.

While Hoge is currently ranked in the top 30 in the OWGR and finished 10th in the FedEx Cup standings last season, he did it largely on the back of playing in 32 Tour events in 2022, winning the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. However, with the Pro-Am becoming one of the new elevated events, you have to wonder that had these rules been in place last season, if Hoge’s name and “star power” on the Tour would have warranted an invite into the event in the first place.

Additionally, with many of those 32 events he played now becoming closed-off events, you also have to wonder what his schedule would have looked like and how that would have impacted his final FedEx Cup points standings.

Min Woo Lee

While he struggled on Sunday, shooting a 76 and finishing in a tie for 6th, there is no question that Min Woo Lee was the talk of the weekend. His 66 on Saturday shot him up to the top of the leaderboard as he was making TPC Sawgrass his personal playground. 

There’s only one problem. Min Woo Lee is not a member of the PGA Tour. The 24-year-old Australian currently holds ranks on the European Tour where he is 3rd in the current Race to Dubai standings. He also sits in the top 50 in the OWGR, which is what earned him his spot on the tee sheet at TPC Sawgrass this week.

Despite his placement in the top 50 in the OWGR, as a non-Tour member, had the new rules been in place this year, Lee likely would have been on the outside looking in.

This week produced everything Jay Monahan and the PGA Tour could have asked for at their signature event. A star holding the trophy, 4 days of exciting golf, and impressive play from golfers young and old that may not necessarily be household names yet. It’s a shame that starting next year, we won’t get to see a lot of it.