With the signature events done for another year, the PGA Tour should arguably be able to reflect that it has been an incredibly positive year as they look to prove that they can thrive without a deal with their big rivals.
While it felt like a slow start to the season, the PGA Tour saw the likes of Rory McIlroy, Ludvig Aberg, Justin Thomas and Scottie Scheffler win signature events this year. Keegan Bradley won the final one of the season at Travelers Championship last month.
When the signature events come around, they do have the feel of mini majors. The large majority of the PGA Tour’s biggest names are usually involved.
However, the signature events have not escaped criticism either.
Ryan Fox suggests what the signature events on the PGA Tour lack
It is a huge advantage for those who earn their spot in the signature events. There are no cuts at most of them, while there are a greater number of FedEx Cup points up for grabs. So it is hard to argue with those who criticise the PGA Tour for mostly serving those at the very top.
Ryan Fox will be a regular fixture in the signature events in 2026 after winning twice this year. But speaking to Sliced, he admitted that he can completely understand the criticism of the structure as he suggested what the signature events need more of.
“I’ve been on both sides of them now I think. Playing them’s great, obviously, as I said, the practice rounds are great. There’s only 70 guys trying to play practice rounds, stuff like that. The pace of play’s great during the event, in two balls,” he said.
“I felt like when they were created, obviously there was LIV versus the PGA Tour, and I always felt like the argument against LIV was the competition side of it, there was nothing else that went against the traditional way of golf where you had cuts and there was nothing guaranteed. We used to have the WGCs back in the day, but I feel like there was always a way to earn your way into them. You’re a top 50 in the world or you played well on another tour. They were kind of a reward event, and there was only four of them at the peak. But it felt like maybe with those signature events, it was a bit of a copy of what LIV was trying to do and that was maybe a different direction to what the PGA Tour should have done.
“But they are working as well. The viewership’s up. By all accounts, sponsors are really happy with them now. The idea of guaranteeing a field in advance, both for TV and for fans coming, makes a whole lot of sense. But I can also see the argument against it, how many cuts do Rory and Scottie and those guys actually miss? If you put them in a 100 man field, or a 120 man field, 99 times out of 100 those guys are going to be there on the weekend anyway.
“I don’t know. I don’t know if they’re up for debate going forward. From both sides, you can see it. If you’re in them, they’re great. But if you’re not in them, you can definitely say let’s increase the field sizes, have a bit more competition. I think the one thing that they potentially lack is a storyline. You look in golf and the underdog winning is something that we do really, really well in golf. And that doesn’t happen as much in signature events because obviously it’s a smaller field and those underdogs aren’t actually getting in the field to start with.”
The problem the PGA Tour has given themselves with future plans
The signature events almost certainly need to be changed moving forward. The PGA Tour is planning to cut the number of players who automatically keep their cards each year down to 100.
It is incredibly difficult for those who do not play in the signature events to force their way into the picture. And the margin for error is set to get even smaller in the coming years.
Perhaps the signature events could be opened up to allow all of those with full membership to tee it up. It is hard to imagine that they lose much if they open up the field to more of those further down the pecking order.
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