The PGA Tour recently announced proposed changes to the Tour from 2026 onwards, due to be voted on by the Tour’s Board of Directors later this month, but Pádraig Harrington is not one bit impressed.
Appearing on the Golf Channel prior to this week’s Charles Schwab Cup Championship – the season ending event on the PGA Champions Tour where the three-time 2024 winner is in with a shout of ending the season as the top ranked player should he win title number four – Harrington took aim at the proposals and branded some as “just terrible.”
Among the changes proposed are a reduction in field sizes which would see 144 players as the absolute maximum with 120- and 132-player fields for the majority of the season, Monday qualifiers largely becoming a thing of the past, and a reduction in the fines issued for slow play.
“I can’t think about how bad it is,” Harrington said, speaking to the Golf Today show. “At the end of the day, the people on the inside are voting to keep the thing tighter and more closed.
“The tour was running just fine. I know there’s a little bit of pressure to finish on time when fields go to 156 at certain times of the season or 144, but players will deal with it.
“They will handle that. They prepare for that. They know at the start of the year [they] might miss out on a few tournament [rounds] because of light.”
Slow play is a major issue in golf, not just on the PGA Tour, but Harrington feels that the attempt to tackle it by reducing the field sizes and taking away opportunities is a mistake. He also feels that taking the cutline out of the equation in some of the bigger Tour events is giving in to the sponsors who want the big-name players there at the weekend.
“Slow play is like driving in rush hour traffic,” he added. “It’s just too many people on the golf course, and the tee times are too tight, so yes, this is a way of solving one of the big issues… but you want to give everybody the opportunity.
“If this was like the Premier League, or the Championship, and there was a really, really good second tour, maybe the European Tour can be that. Maybe it works out. But to me, it definitely looks like the people on the inside are keeping it tighter.
“Not having a Monday qualifier, c’mon, that’s one of the most exciting things on the tour.
“The cut line is also one of the most exciting things on the tour but I know ‘no cut’ fields suit the sponsors. They want the leading names guaranteed to be there on the weekend.”