The 2024 PGA Tour season marked the second year of signature events being a featured part of the league. Introduced as a way to pit the Tour’s best players against one another on a more consistent basis — all while filling their pockets with guaranteed money as a means of fending off the LIV Golf threat — the signature events got off to a roaring start in its initial go around but hit a wall this last year.
In 2023, the “designated events” lived up to the billing. Jon Rahm and Scottie Scheffler were among the early winners, but there were also feel-good stories like Kurt Kitayama emerging from a star-studded leaderboard at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. Sam Burns, Matt Fitzpatrick, Wyndham Clark and Viktor Hovland all reigned supreme on the biggest stages on the PGA Tour before the series came to an eventful end at the Travelers Championship where Keegan Bradley won. Of the nine tournaments played — now trimmed to eight — only Rahm raised more than one trophy.
The parity appeared to trickle into the new season as a smorgasbord of names entered the winner’s circle during the winter months. Chris Kirk claimed the opening crown at The Sentry before Clark won a shortened AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and Hideki Matsuyama made his presence known at the Genesis Invitational.
This revolving doors of winners came to an abrupt halt because of one man: Scottie Scheffler. The world No. 1 won four of the last five signature events, and his name was all over the place given his success at the Masters, 2024 Paris Olympics and the Tour Championship. Rory McIlroy was the only other player to cash a winner’s check from a signature event over last six months of the season, though Xander Schauffele did pick up two majors and Bryson DeChambeau another (not like he’s helping the PGA Tour’s efforts).
The simple fact is that Scheffler did so much winning — frankly, in a dominant fashion — that it tamped down excitement the signature events were supposed to create. The PGA Tour now finds itself in between a rock and a hard place — stars play in all of the same tournaments, but none of the stars are winning them.
Scheffler is not going anywhere in 2025 — heck, he may be even better entering a full season with an adequate game plan on the greens — but the rest of the game’s big names need to step up.
The PGA Tour cannot control what happens in between the ropes, of course, but they need their star players to play … like stars. Jordan Spieth, for example, has two wins since the beginning of 2018 and none the last two years. Justin Thomas doesn’t have a win since the 2022 PGA Championship. Patrick Cantlay is without a trophy since the summer of 2022.
A short list of several other notable players who did not win on the PGA Tour in 2024: Ludvig Åberg, Tony Finau, Tommy Fleetwood, Rickie Fowler, Max Homa, Viktor Hovland, Sungjae Im, Si Woo Kim, Tom Kim, Collin Morikawa, Sahith Theegala and Will Zalatoris.
These guys all keep similar schedules as they center their seasons around the four major championships, eight signature events, The Players Championship and the FedEx Cup Playoffs. That’s at least 16 tournaments — the same number of PGA Tour events Hovland played all year — out of, let’s call it, a typical 20-tournament playing schedule.
Now, there are two ways through which this ordeal can be remedied. The first is players adding non-signature events to their calendars. We see Spieth play his way though his native Texas on annual basis, for example. He added a couple stops late in the year as a way to qualify for the postseason, which is what Thomas did the season prior.
Players starting tournaments they typically would not would be ideal, but we all know that is not going to happen. They are creatures of habit, and with the advent of TGL which will be played early in the week starting in January, asking for more is likely too much.
Instead, we are left with a phrase that has been uttered time and again as the PGA Tour goes through structural changes. While it is often meant for journeymen fighting for playing privileges, this time, it is meant for some near the top of the totem pole.
They need to hear it, too.
Play better.
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