The PGA Tour have been told that they will have to stop co-sanctioning the Scottish Open from 2028 once the tour is split into two tiers.
There was plenty of excitement heading into the Scottish Open at The Renaissance Club. There was an argument that the event in North Berwick boasted the strongest field of any tournament outside of the four majors this year.
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Tom Kim, Johnny Keefer, and Michael Thorbjornsen all finished inside the top 10 at the Scottish Open
It was the first event sanctioned by the PGA Tour that Jon Rahm had featured in since his departure for LIV Golf in December 2023. Meanwhile, Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler were also involved as they continue their preparations for The Open Championship.
But Brian Rolapp and those at Ponte Vedra are facing a dilemma when it comes to the Scottish Open.
What the PGA Tour has been told to do with the Scottish Open
From 2028, the PGA Tour will be split into the Championship and Challenger Series. Players are set to be forbidden from moving between the two tiers unless they are officially promoted or relegated.
That means that the fields for all of the Championship Series events are likely to look the same. But that is a problem given that the Scottish Open is also run by the DP World Tour, with the PGA Tour coming on board in 2022.
There would be uproar if the PGA Tour got to decide the full field for the Scottish Open.
With that, Ryan Lavner has told the Golf Channel Podcast that the PGA Tour may have to step away from officially co-sanctioning the event, while leaving the door open for players to still go over to take part.
“You can’t just have a hostile takeover of the PGA Tour just taking the Scottish Open and putting it into a chokehold and stiff-arming the DP World Tour and saying no, this is our event now. It obviously can’t drop down to a Challenger Series event because the players in tier one wouldn’t be able to go play that golf tournament. You can’t move it to the fall because I think the mass appeal among the players outside of it being a really important national open, is that it serves as the perfect lead-in and perfect preparation for the year’s final major at The Open,” he said.
“I think the solution is if you’re the PGA Tour and you’re trying to map out a Championship Series for 2028, you should build in an off week heading into The Open Championship. At that point, you would then have a DP World Tour event, a Rolex Series event as it currently is and as it was before it became co-sanctioned a couple of years ago with the PGA Tour. All of a sudden, you hand out sponsor exemptions to the players who would want to come across the pond.
“This could be a number of sponsor exemptions, you might have to alter that field, or tweak some of the qualification categories, exemption categories. You could get the field that you want while having it primarily, almost exclusively, a DP World Tour event on the schedule and not a part of the Championship Series, and it still would be a typical Rolex Series event that would still garner a $7-8 million purse.”
The Canadian Open must become a prominent event on the PGA Tour’s Championship Series
The PGA Tour may have to surrender any control over the Scottish Open, but the event has shown what potential there could be if they invest in more national opens.
There should now be no doubts that the Canadian Open should be on the Championship Series from 2028 onwards.
Obviously, that would be a blow for the Canadian players further down the food chain.
It would be hypocritical to say the PGA Tour should step away from helping decide the field for the Scottish Open, due to the impact it would have on DP World Tour members, but then back them preventing some Canadian players from taking part in their biggest event of the year.
Perhaps those Canadians on the Challenger Series who would have previously been involved can receive a special exemption for one week.
It could get messy if a true underdog from the second tier went on to win the event. But that is an issue that the PGA Tour will have to wrestle with now that they provided some of the details for how the two tracks will work.
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