PGA Tour postseason to conclude with match play

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  Mark SchlabachAug 25, 2026, 08:45 AM ET

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  • Senior college football writer
  • Author of seven books on college football
  • Graduate of the University of Georgia

ATLANTA -- The PGA Tour's future postseason will include a Championship Series Finale -- a 72-hole, stroke-play tournament that will finalize the points list and determine the season-long champion -- followed by the top golfers competing in match play over two weeks in a reimagined Tour Championship.

PGA Tour commissioner/CEO Brian Rolapp will announce the changes during a Tuesday news conference at the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta.

The new postseason will make its debut following the 2028 regular season.

"I think one of the issues with the [current] Tour Championship was that I don't think anyone really felt that it was culminating in crowning the best golfer in the world," Rolapp told ESPN. "I feel like calling it the playoffs was almost doing it a disservice because it was just a separate competition. I think we've established how you determine the best golfer in the world, and then we've established a really great competition in a format that fans want to see that is just a different set of skills over a period of time."

The PGA Tour Championship Series Finale will include the top 90 players from the season-long points list, who will retain their cards the following season. The final points list after that event will determine the season-long champion and bonus distributions.

There could potentially be two winners crowned that week if, for example, Scottie Scheffler finished third in the PGA Tour Championship Series Finale but still had the most season-long points. A revised points system could lead to more volatility in the final event.

The top 32 golfers on the season-long points list at the conclusion of the Championship Series Finale will advance to the Tour Championship, which will be played over two weeks at different courses.

The first week of the Tour Championship will include a three-round, group-stage competition with 32 golfers competing in eight groups of four. Golfers will be seeded and they'll compete against the other three players in their group. The top two golfers from each group will advance to the second week of the Tour Championship.

If golfers are tied at the end of group play, a playoff will be used to determine which golfers advance to the next stage.

The 16 golfers who make it to the second week will compete in a first-of-its-kind, match-play bracket to determine the Tour Championship winner. Players will advance through the bracket based on their win-loss record, and the final two undefeated golfers will compete to be crowned the Tour champion.

Players' win-loss records over the four rounds will be used to determine the final championship standings.

It's the first time match play has been implemented in the PGA Tour's postseason and the first time the head-to-head competition has been utilized on tour since the 2023 World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play in Austin, Texas.

Keith Mitchell, one of six golfers on the tour's Future Competition Committee, said tour members weren't initially keen on the idea of incorporating match play into the postseason.

During a Player Advisory Council meeting two years ago, Mitchell said golfers were "violently against" the idea.

"One 18-hole match does not determine a season-long champion in a fair and equitable way," Mitchell told ESPN. "Players basically just said, 'No.' We didn't want that much of our earnings and income of a season to come down to a potential 13-hole match at the end of the season. It's just not fair."

It wasn't until the Future Competition Committee came up with the idea to separate the postseason with one final 72-hole, stroke-play tournament to determine the season-long champion and a stand-alone, match-play event that more golfers came on board.

"The most important thing for the players was rewarding a season-long champion without some sort of gimmicks [like] elevated points or starting strokes," Mitchell said. "We wanted the regular-season champion to be as accurate as possible, and the FedEx Cup bonus distributions to be as accurate as possible."

Mitchell said one of the tour's partners presented data that showed match play increases fans' and TV viewers' attention and engagement.

It's the same format used in the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup.

The PGA Tour believes it has filled holes during broadcast windows that caused some TV partners to frown on match play in the past.

"You're not one-and-done because some guy has a great round and you're out of the tournament," Mitchell said. "The group play kind of solves that."

Even if a golfer loses his first two matches in the final week of the Tour Championship, he can finish in a tie for sixth by winning the next two.

"We're sorting the leaderboard off total wins," Mitchell said. "That wouldn't have been the case before."

The PGA Tour said because of the new Tour Championship's compact field and unique format, it will be able to rotate the event annually among "prestigious venues, including courses the modern PGA Tour has not traditionally been able to feature."

The tour plans to announce the Championship Series' full lineup and venues for the 2028 season, including the Tour Championship, on Feb. 22, 2027.

Rolapp told ESPN the tour hasn't formally engaged in discussions with potential venues but noted that members of his staff have had on-site visits to courses that have expressed interest in hosting the postseason events.

"I think it'll be a combination of bigger markets and smaller markets," Rolapp said. "I think it'll end up being a rotation over a period of time. We like the idea of the West Coast at times because of the primetime aspect of it, but there's a lot of East Coast venues that we'd love to get to as well. I think we'll make both work."

The PGA Tour on June 23 announced that its new model will include two separate series of tournaments -- the PGA Tour Championship Series and PGA Tour Challenger Series -- that will run concurrently during the season. The Championship Series will feature as many as 24 events, including 16 signature events, The Players Championship, four major championships, postseason events and the Presidents Cup or Ryder Cup.

The Championship Series season will run from around February through August, and the postseason will be concluded before the NFL regular season kicks off.

The Challenger Series will be the primary pathway to the Championship Series, with golfers competing to advance to the top track, including in-season elevation with two victories.