Tiger Woods takes up PGA role but unification in golf is as distant as ever | PGA Tour

TIger Woods will chair a newly created PGA Tour committee aimed at reshaping the competitive golf landscape in the United States. But the comments made by Brian Rolapp, the new director general of the tour, have shown that unification between the traditional sport ecosystem and the Savadi Arab circuit is still as distant.

Woods, who has not contributed since the 2024 open championship due to an injury, was the name of title when Rolapp addressed the media in Atlanta on the eve of the Tour championship. After only three weeks in power, the CEO has trained a future competition committee which will also feature Patrick Cantlay and Adam Scott. Rolapp seems clear that the tournament landscape must change.

“The goal of this committee is quite simple,” said Rolapp. “We will design the best model of professional golf competition in the world for the benefit of PGA Tour fans, players and their partners. It is aimed at a holistic replay of the way we compete. This includes the regular season, the after-season and the out of season.

“We are going to focus on the evolution of our competitive model and media products and corresponding sponsorship elements and the model of the whole sport. The objective is not a progressive change. The objective is a significant change. “

The creation of a significant break between the seasons of the PGA Tour and guarantees that the most prominent players will play in the best events seem logical starting points for Woods.

Press lectures like this tended to focus on progress on an agreement between the PGA Tour and the public investment fund of Saudi Arabia. A framework agreement was signed between the parties of the summer of 2023 in the supposed objective of the Golf elite.

The progress, however, has been slow: the PGA Tour rejected various concession requests made by the PIF at the end of March, in exchange for $ 1.5 billion in investment. Key characters of this sport such as Jon Rahm, Bryson Dechambeau and Brooks Koepka play under the Liv banner and are therefore the main absent from the PGA Tour.

Rolapp admitted that he had not had discussions with the PIF. “My main goal will be to strengthen the visit. The virgin paper sheet means a blank sheet of paper. Anyway, I will continue aggressively. This is how I see it. “

In the players’ championship five months ago, the PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan revealed that 70% of the fans questioned wanted a unification with Liv. Rolapp echoed this feeling in June. Pressed if he agreed that golf spectators want to see the best of the game compete more often, Rolapp seemed to go back. He said: “Yes, golf fans want to see the best possible competition in the sport they like in a competition model that makes sense.”

Subsequently contested on the fact that unification is a priority or not, the CEO seemed to be railing against “a question of VIV”. He added: “I’m going to focus on what I can control. I would offer you that the best collection of golfers in the world is on the PGA Tour. I think there are a lot of measures that demonstrate it, from the viewer to everything you want to choose. I’m going to rely and strengthen this.

“I would also say that insofar as we can do everything that will further strengthen the PGA Tour, we will. I am interested in exploring everything that strengthens the PGA Tour. ”

While trying to finish a sensational season with the victory in the Tour championship and the Fedex Cup, Scottie Scheffler rejected the parallels with the formerly imperative Woods. The world n ° 1 won five times in 2025, including two majors, to separate like the dominant figure from the golf course.

“It is very silly to be compared to Tiger Woods,” said Scheffler. “Tiger is a guy who stands alone in the golf course and I think he will always do it. Tiger inspired a whole generation of golfers. You grew up watching this guy do what he did week, week, it was quite incredible to see.”

Scheffler created Woods with a role in its development after being in the major company of the major winner at the 2020 Masters. “I only played a tournament golf tour with Tiger Woods and it completely changed my way of seeing how I play tournaments,” said Scheffler.

“I can’t tell you about his face when we arrived in the 1st green. I look, and we are in 20th place, in a way to play, Yada, Yada, Ya, and I look and that this guy is just locked up. I was absorbed. Given something like that before my life. “”