PGA Tour

The PGA Tour is the organization behind the main men’s professional golf tournaments played in North America. It is primarily responsible for organizing most of the events included in the flagship series of annual golf tournaments that are part of the professional golf tour also known as the PGA Tour. In addition, the PGA Tour organizes major professional golf tours like the PGA Tour Champions and the Korn Ferry Tour. Historically, the PGA Tour began as part of the Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA) of America before splitting off into a separate organization for tour players in 1968. Since that time, the PGA Tour has been responsible for overseeing most of the week-to-week professional golf events that are part of the PGA Tour competition itself. Some of these events include the Players Championship, the FedEx Cup, and the Presidents Cup. More than fifty years after its inception, the PGA Tour remains one of the leading organizations in professional golf, both in North America and around the world.

Background

The PGA Tour is often conflated with the PGA of America, but the two, though closely related, are separate organizations. The primary difference between the two is that while the PGA of America is for club professionals, the PGA Tour is concerned with tour pros and tournament golf. The difference between the PGA Tour and the PGA of America is also illustrated through the two organizations’ shared history.

The PGA of America was founded in 1916. Although professional golf had already existed in North America for some time at that point, those who played the game found themselves struggling to stay afloat. The fundamental problem was that there simply was not enough money in golf tournaments for professional golfers to adequately support themselves without any other income. This eventually led to the idea of an association of golf professionals, which some forward-thinking individuals in the sport believed could boost golf equipment sales and thereby raise more capital to fund professional golf. To that end, the PGA of America was created.

For many years after its formation, the PGA of America was a broad organization that included club professionals, teaching pros, and touring professionals in its ranks. As golf grew in popularity in the 1950s and 1960s and the game’s purses and television revenues rose accordingly, conflict began to emerge and escalate within the PGA of America. That conflict was primarily between the wealthier club pros and the touring professionals who made their living by playing in tournaments. Eventually, in 1968, a number of the game’s top players—such as Jack Nicklaus, Gardner Dickinson, Doug Ford, and Frank Beard—split from the PGA of America to form an organization called American Professional Golfers, Inc. By the end of the year, the PGA of America and American Professional Golfer, Inc. reached an agreement that resulted in the creation of the PGA Tournament Players Division, a separate organization related to, but independent from, the PGA of America that was specifically designed for touring professionals. In 1975, the PGA Tournament Players Division was rebranded as the PGA Tour.

Overview

The PGA Tour is the leading professional golf circuit for men in North America. As an organization, the PGA Tour is responsible for running the majority of the professional golf tournaments held each week throughout a large portion of the year. In the modern era, the PGA Tour’s slate of tournaments often includes up to fifty separate competitive events. Some of the organization’s top events include the Players Championship and the Tour’s annual championship event, known since 2007 as the FedEx Cup. The PGA Tour also runs the biennial Presidents Cup event. In addition, the organization runs the Champions Tour for senior professional golfers and a number of developmental circuits like the Korn Ferry Tour.

Equally important to understanding the PGA Tour is understanding what the organization does not do. Most importantly, the PGA does not run any of the four Majors events. These events include the Masters, the US Open, the Open Championship, and the PGA Championship. For this reason, the PGA Tour has attempted to position its own Players Championship as a “fifth major” of sorts. The PGA Tour also has no direct role in overseeing the sport of golf in America, a job that is instead the responsibility of the United States Golf Association (USGA).

Despite being separate entities that serve different groups of people within the world of professional golf, the PGA Tour and the PGA of America do share a close working relationship. Among other things, the two organizations are associated as members of the International Golf Federation and work together on matters like scheduling.

For golfers, the PGA Tour is quite exclusive and attaining membership is no easy task. In order to become a member of the PGA Tour, a golfer must earn a PGA Tour card. There are several ways to earn one of these sought-after cards. The first and easiest way is through a strong performance on the Korn Ferry Tour. Players who make it to the Korn Ferry Tour can earn a PGA Tour card in one of two main ways. Each year, there are fifty PGA Tour cards made available through the Korn Ferry Tour. Half of these cards are awarded to the top twenty-five players on the Korn Ferry Tour regular season points list. The other half are awarded following the Korn Ferry Tour Finals. Players can also automatically earn a PGA Tour card by winning three Korn Ferry Tour events in a single season. This is known as the Three-Win Promotion. There are also two ways to earn a PGA Tour card without playing in the Korn Ferry Tour at all. A limited number of spots are reserved at weekly tournaments through sponsor exemptions and Monday qualifiers. Non-Tour members who use these routes to compete at such events can earn a Special Temporary Membership by scoring at least as many points as the player who finished in 150th place at the previous FedEx Cup. Players who hold a Special Temporary Membership can then earn a PGA Tour card by finishing in the top 125 of the FedEx Cup regular season points list. Finally, anyone who wins a PGA Tour Event while playing on a sponsor exemption or Monday qualifier is automatically awarded a PGA Tour card.

LIV Golf

One of the largest threats to the PGA Tour occurred in 2021 upon the formation of LIV Golf, a professional tour backed by the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund that was intended to challenge the PGA Tour. Offering prize pools upwards of $20 million, LIV Golf tempted many PGA Tour stalwarts, including Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, and Brooks Koepka, into joining the new tour. However, the PGA Tour quickly announced plans to ban LIV players from competing in PGA Tour events. A bitter rivalry developed between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf that saw both parties file lawsuits against one another, with LIV Golf alleging that the PGA Tour violated antitrust laws by banning players who joined LIV and the PGA Tour alleging that LIV was damaging the PGA Tour by urging players to break their contacts with the Tour. In 2022, the US Department of Justice announced that it was investigating the PGA Tour for allegedly participating in anticompetitive behavior by banning players who had joined LIV Golf.

Following a period fraught with scandal and continued litigation, both parties, in a surprise announcement, revealed plans for a partnership deal in June 2023 that would unify both the PGA Tour and LIV Golf under a larger parent company. At the same time, PGA Tour officials announced plans to allow disqualified LIV players reentry to the PGA Tour. Many saw this move as being unexpected due to the schism that the rivalry between both groups created in the golf community. At the time of the proposed merger, the PGA Tour expressed a desire to unify the sport.

In January 2024, the PGA Tour partnered with Strategic Sports Group (SSG), a group of wealthy sports team owners, to create a for-profit entity, PGA Tour Enterprises. SSG's $1.5 billion dollar initial investment was made to help boost the Tour's commercial opportunities by making all qualifying members equity shareholders. The deal was also made to focus on sponsorships, media deals, and fan engagement. SSG leveraged its expertise in sports marketing and media to help secure new revenue streams and expand the Tour's global reach and partnerships, which could potentially streamline negotiations with Liv.

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