JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - PGA Tour fans accustomed to planning vacations, golf outings and TV time with Tiger around traditional segments of the Tour schedule should take heed:
Enjoy it while you can. Changes are coming in 2006.
This season, which opened Thursday with the Mercedes Championships in Kapalua, Hawaii, will be the bridge between the old schedule and the new.
"The platform is changing," PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem said. "We're going to have a different set of dynamics."
Exactly what and how it will change could be announced later this month, when negotiations between the Tour and the major TV networks conclude with a new contract that will run from 2007-10. What is known is that the Tour Championship, reserved in the past for the top 30 money winners at the end of the season, will move from November to mid-September as the final piece in a season-long points race called the FedEx Cup.
The points system will seed players for a series of three events, likely at Cog Hill Golf Club near Chicago, Westchester Country Club near New York and the TPC of Boston.
An undetermined number of players performing the best in those events will advance to the Tour Championship.
The rest of the schedule will be revealed in the coming weeks.
In the meantime, the 2006 season will look much like the Tour schedule since 1998, when the three World Golf Championship events were launched. That means the Mercedes Championships (which are sans Woods, Mickelson, Goosen and Padraig Harrington this week) kicks off the nine-event Western Swing.
The Florida Swing begins with the Ford Championship at Doral from March 2-5, and concludes with The Players Championship, on March 23-26.
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