PGA Tour Confirms Match-Play Tour Championship for 2028

The PGA Tour confirmed Tuesday that the Tour Championship will switch to a match-play format beginning in 2028, ending the season with a two-week knockout event rather than another 72-hole stroke-play tournament. The change caps months of speculation that followed commissioner Brian Rolapp's confirmation in March that the format was under review.

What is the new Tour Championship structure?

The revamp restructures the entire postseason. The Championship Series Finale, a 72-hole stroke-play event, will carry a 90-player field and serve as the last counting tournament of the year. It locks the season-long points list, crowns the points champion and sets a 32-man field for the Tour Championship, which moves to a separate venue.

Those 32 players split into eight groups of four for a three-round round-robin in the Tour Championship's first week. The top two finishers in each group, 16 players in all, advance to a four-round bracket the following week. Ties within a group are settled by a sudden-death playoff.

How does the match-play bracket work?

All 16 players compete in every round of the second week rather than being eliminated outright, with records across the four rounds determining the final standings. The two undefeated players left in the bracket meet to decide the champion. It is the first time match play has featured in a Tour postseason and the format's first appearance on Tour since the 2023 WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play.

Why is the Tour making the change?

Rolapp said the redesign grew out of feedback gathered through the Tour's Future Competition Committee, which Tiger Woods chairs, describing the result as a season-ending structure built to reward a full year of excellence. Woods, an outspoken advocate for the new format, wrote on social media that he was "excited to usher in a new era of match play on the PGA Tour."

The event will no longer be tied exclusively to East Lake Golf Club, its host since the FedEx Cup era began. Instead, the Tour Championship will rotate annually among what the Tour called "prestigious venues, including courses the modern PGA Tour has not traditionally been able to feature." No sites have been named; the Tour said the full 2028 Championship Series schedule, including Tour Championship venues, will be announced Feb. 22, 2027.

The Tour Championship becomes a compact, two-week match-play gauntlet instead of another 72-hole procession.