The PGA TOUR schedule has been revamped for 2018-19, featuring significant events every month and culminating with the FedExCup Playoffs in August.
The biggest moves are THE PLAYERS Championship shifting from May to March and the PGA Championship from August to May. These changes allow for a cadence of big events starting in the spring, and clears the way for an earlier finish for the FedExCup Playoffs, which are reduced from four tournaments to three and will conclude in August. The first Playoffs event, THE NORTHERN TRUST, will rotate each year between TPC Boston and a New York City-area course.
The earlier finish will mean an expanded fall schedule in 2019-20.Meanwhile, two new tournaments join the 2018-19 PGA TOUR schedule, the Rocket Mortgage Classic in Detroit on June 27-30 and the 3M Open at TPC Twin Cities on July 4-7. The final World Golf Championships event of the season, previously held in Akron, Ohio, moves to TPC Southwind in Memphis as the World Golf Championships-FedEx St. Jude Invitational.
The 2018-19 PGA TOUR schedule opened with no changes in the fall, nor on the West Coast swing after the turn of the calendar. The World Golf Championships-Mexico Championship moves a week earlier to be played the last week of February, and the March schedule has been adjusted with THE PLAYERS Championship on March 14-17 slotted between the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard and the Valspar Championship, with the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play set for the last week of March.
The Valero Texas Open moves to the week before the Masters to highlight an exciting April lineup, while The AT&T Byron Nelson and Charles Schwab Challenge will bookend the PGA Championship held May 16-19. It will be the first PGA Championship at Bethpage State Park’s Black Course in New York, site of two U.S. Opens.
During PGA Tour Champions, the 2018 season reached its exciting climax with the Charles Schwab Cup Playoffs finishing in November. There are no changes in tournament order in the first part of the 2019 Champions schedule, with one change in sponsorship as the event in Newport Beach, Calif., becomes the Hoag Classic. The KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship will be held this year at venerable Oak Hill Country Club in Rochester, N.Y.
This article first appeared in the PGA TOUR December 2018-May 2019 issue, which can be read here.