One PGA Tour player has suggested rule change for 2026 which would have stopped Kurt Kitayama winning the 3M Open

Add as preferred source on Google

Kurt Kitayama won the 3M Open in style on Sunday – the second PGA Tour win of his career.

It was an incredible victory for Kitayama, who made the cut on the number at the 3M Open.

The 32-year-old then caught fire on Saturday, shooting an unbelievable round of 11-under par 60 to catapult himself back into contention.

He then shot a final round 65 to beat Sam Stevens by one stroke.

Kitayama made 20 birdies over the weekend at the 3M Open – the most by any player over two days over the last 40 years.

He deserves huge credit for battling back over the weekend at TPC Twin Cities to pick up the second win of his career.

However, it all could have turned out very differently if one PGA Tour player’s idea had been brought into place at the start of this season.

The PGA Tour rule change which would’ve stopped Kurt Kitayama winning the 3M Open

Maverick McNealy, who will be on the PGA Tour player’s policy board next season, has suggested a big rule change for 2026.

McNealy is a keen advocate for a faster pace of play on the PGA Tour, and he wants more twosomes instead of threesomes.

His other plan of action is to get the fields chopped down to 60 players heading into the final two rounds of tournaments.

If that rule had been in play this year, Kitayama wouldn’t have even played on the weekend at the 3M Open.

And Rex Hoggard has explained how McNealy’s proposal could be bad news in theory.

“The one thing I would say is we had this conversation earlier in the season and I went to Maverick McNealy, who is going to be on the policy board next year, and pace of play has become an issue again on the PGA Tour.

“He sort of explained his situation in the simplest of terms, that if you play in twosomes rather than threesomes you play better.

“When he first said it I kind of rolled my eyes, like duh that’s obvious, what are you talking about?
But what he was going towards is that you start with the same field size for Thursday and Friday, he wasn’t taking away playing opportunities, but his thought was that we cut the cut down, to top 65 or maybe even top 60 and that way you are going to end up more often than not with twosomes on the weekend.

“I remember it was at Torrey Pines when we had this conversation and the difference was more than an hour, when he had this round in threesomes on Friday and twosomes on Saturday.

“It really made sense to me up until today. Because you look at what Kurt Kitayama had to do on Friday just to make the cut. He talked about it on Friday afternoon, he was well outside the number, and every player on the PGA Tour has a weekend like Kurt inside of them. It’s not always going to be there, but they can always string together 36 or maybe even 54 holes.

“If you take away that opportunity which if Mav McNealy does go forward with this and the PGA Tour consider it that is the danger.

“I’m not even saying that Mav is wrong still. I agree you want to make the product better on the weekend, which is part of the conversation, so top 60 or top 65 makes perfect sense but you are going to do away with these type of stories.“

Whilst McNealy’s idea sounds like a good one in principle, Hoggard has got it spot on by suggesting that a higher bar for making the cut would stop the so-called Cinderella stories like Kitayama’s from happening.

Kurt Kitayama’s outstanding performance at the 3M Open

The 32-year-old secured his short-term future, with his outstanding victory on Sunday.

Here is how his numbers stacked up at TPC Twin Cities last week:

Those numbers are pretty incredible when you consider he was outside the top-60 on the leaderboard after two rounds.

Kitayama has added great weight to the argument that field sizes heading into the weekends should remain the same for 2026, after his superb 3M Open win.