The PGA Tour have to wise up quickly, if they are to prevent further frustrating decisions being made from the two best golfers in the world and their biggest star names – Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy.
Scheffler and his main rival McIlroy both enjoyed truly sensational seasons on the PGA Tour in 2025, with eight PGA Tour wins and three major championships to their names between them.
The 29-year-old world number one slightly had the edge over the man from Northern Ireland after recording five wins including two majors.
However, the 36-year-old did complete the career Grand Slam and that obviously carries a lot of weight.
Many PGA Tour players were in awe of Scheffler and McIlroy in 2025, and they have been for quite some time now in all fairness.
Scheffler should pip McIlroy to the PGA Tour Player of the Year award, and that in itself is crazy really considering the fact that the five-time major champion won three tournaments including The Masters and The Players Championship.
However, despite all of their brilliance at different stages throughout the season, both players were involved in their fair share of controversy as well.
The PGA Tour learned nothing after Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy decisions
After LIV Golf was formed in 2022, the PGA Tour hierarchy were forced into making some big changes.
Firstly prize funds were immediately increased with the additions of what were known at the time as Designated Events with more lucrative purses.
Those tournaments are now known as Signature Events, but there is a clear and obvious problem with them unfortunately.
And Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy exposed the issue with the system in 2025.
The sole point of Signature Events was to guarantee golf fans more tournaments to watch with the best players all competing against one another.
As a result, the Tour have been able to bring in more money from their sponsors due to the fact that companies ploughing money into the events would be more certain that the biggest stars would show up to play in them, in theory at least.
However, the model simply doesn’t work. McIlroy skipped three Signature Events in 2025 while Scheffler missed out on two, although only one of them was through choice with injury ruling him out of the season opener in Hawaii.
PGA Tour players are independent contractors, so they can play where and when they choose. The fact that Scheffler and McIlroy missed out on so many Signature Events in 2025 was proof in itself that the system was, and very much still is, flawed.
The most frustrating thing about the whole situation is that the PGA Tour haven’t learned their lesson.
PGA Tour’s 2026 schedule has the same glaring issues once again
The 2026 PGA Tour schedule was released last month, with a ninth Signature Event added at Trump National Doral in Miami, Florida.
However, once again, all nine are bunched up incredibly close together, with the final Signature Event taking place at the Travelers Championship in June.
Two of the big-money events come immediately after majors while one is pencilled in for just before the PGA Championship and another is scheduled to take place the week before The Players.
From mid-April to the end of June there are five Signature Events jammed in alongside two major championships.
The schedule is just way too punishing. Sure, it’s a lovely way to earn a living, but most top players don’t like playing more than two weeks in a row now.
And the PGA Tour’s 2026 schedule has undoubtedly ensured that the nine Signature Events will once again be missing the best players in the world at different stages of the season, most likely Scheffler and McIlroy included.
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