Wednesday, December 26, 2012

2013 PGA Tour Season

The 2013 PGA Tour season marks the end of an era.  No longer will the season start in January.  No longer will the PGA Tour Qualifying School lead to an automatic birth onto the big tour.  Changes aplenty led to many young stars trying Q School this past December.  But what will these changes really mean?  No one knows but it will become apparent as the season progresses.

The Tour Season once again starts with the Hyundai Tournament of Champions in Hawaii, followed by the Sony Open.  We will not see Tiger Woods at either of those events, nor will we see him in January in the US.  He will begin his season overseas in Dubai.  Following him to Dubai will be big names from throughout the world.  The tournament in Dubai will be the biggest event of the early season.

The major championship rotation heads to Merion in Pennsylvania, Muirfield for the Open Championship, and Oak Hill for the PGA Championship, along with Augusta National.  This formidable rotation will challenge the top players in the world for the most coveted titles.

What will be different near the end of the season?  The mail tour season will end after the Tour Championship and the FedEx Cup playoffs.  The fall series will now be a group of 4 tournaments that includes players from the PGA and Web.com tours competing for 50 spots on the regular tour.  These are the 50 spots that were reserved for Web.com graduates and Q school graduates in the past.  Q school will now turn into a Web.com Tour proving ground, and the Web.com Tour will now be the feeder system for all PGA touring pros.  Young players will have to prove their way in through the Web.com Tour or win enough money with exemptions to fit in somewhere in the top 125 in the PGA Tour Money List.

And the 2014 PGA Tour season will start in October with 6 events taking place in 2013.  The rest of the 2014 schedule has yet to be announced, but will be later in 2013.

I am looking forward to a fun and exciting season, hopefully with many great duels with the younger players and the veterans, and also looking forward to some young Americans emerging as powers in the world of golf.

No comments:

Post a Comment