The PGA Tour has announced a schedule shake-up that will have seven tournaments for players to either retain full status, earn a spot in the Masters or become eligible for some of the $29.8 million events the following season.
This will be the first time since 2013 that autumn (spring in Australia) is not the start of a new season. The tour is returning to a calendar season that begins in January, part of a shakeup that allows the top players to compete against each other more often.
Missing from the autumn schedule is the Houston Open, which is moving to the spring in 2024, and the CJ Cup in South Korea.
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The CJ Cup has been played twice in Las Vegas (2020-21) and last year in South Carolina because of the COVID-19 pandemic. One possibility is that CJ returns in 2024 as the new title sponsor of the Byron Nelson, as AT&T is ending its title sponsorship of the longtime Dallas-area event.
Only the top 70 players — down from 125 — qualify for the FedEx Cup playoffs this year, with the top 50 advancing to the second event. Those 50 players are eligible for all the designated events in 2024 that offer the $29.8 million purses. The top 30 advance to the Tour Championship.
The FedEx Cup points continue into the seven-tournament autumn schedule for players who finish No.51 and beyond. That allows them to either finish in the top 125 to retain full tour status or be among the top 10 not already eligible who qualify for two $29.8 million events at the start of the new season.
Winners of autumn events, which offer a total of $84.5 million prize money, earn an invitation to the Masters, PGA Championship, The Players Championship and the Sentry Tournament of Champions at Kapalua.
Four of the seven autumn tournaments are in the US, though the schedule manages a geographical flow.
The autumn starts September 14-17 in Napa, California, with the Fortinet Championship before taking a two-week break for the Ryder Cup in Italy.
Then it goes westward on October 5-8 from Mississippi to Las Vegas to Japan. After a week off, the tour heads east to the tip of Baja California in Mexico, then to Bermuda and ends with the RSM Classic at Sea Island along the Georgia coast on November 16-19.
The HSBC Champions in Shanghai is no longer on the schedule. It has been a World Golf Championships event since 2009 but has not been played since 2019 because of the pandemic. That ends the WGCs; the Dell Match Play is not part of the 2024 schedule.
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