Finally, golf has a postseason that matters

Golf Digest

Despite nearly two decades of existence, the FedEx Cup has never captured the golf public’s imagination. It was defined mostly by what it lacked: urgency, identity and consequence. Now, finally, the PGA Tour has designed a postseason capable of breaking through that malaise. Beginning in 2028, the tour will introduce a two-week match-play finale rotating among some of the country’s most prestigious courses. The opening week will feature 32 players divided into a World Cup-style group stage, with the top 16 advancing. From there, the competition becomes single elimination, each match carrying the clarity and tension the postseason has long been missing, until a champion is crowned.

As we wrote in June, the changes ushered in by new CEO Brian Rolapp were long overdue. Details remain unresolved, but for the first time in years, the tour appears willing to embrace creativity and reinvention. More importantly, the format makes clear that fans are finally the priority.

There is a plan now—a genuine one, pointed in the right direction and built with the right people in mind. After years of managed stasis, the tour is moving, and in the right direction.

No LIV returns, the Good Good controversy and Rory’s status: 10 takeaways from Brian Rolapp’s Tour Championship press conference

LIV players should not expect a general invitation back to the PGA Tour. Plus, nine other thoughts.

By Joel Beall

What You Need to Know

Coleman Bentley

LeBron James and the PGA Tour are joining forces. The King's growing influence in the game of golf took another step on Tuesday with the announcement of the LeBron James Family Foundation, a new charitable co-venture with the PGA Tour that James says aims to "open doors, build relationships and create opportunities that many kids don’t even know exist" in the game of golf. The new program, which coincides with the PGA Tour's recently revamped philanthropic strategy and the launch of James' new golf YouTube channel, will kick off July 6-7, 2027, with the LeBron James Family Foundation Invitational at Firestone Country Club. That's right, the PGA Tour is returning to Firestone ... in a manner of speaking.

Christopher Powers

Can confronting a Twitter hater finally change my luck? If you're not glued to Golf Twitter (good for you), you likely have no idea who Larry @Tom & Marty's is, or the experiment he's conducted in 2026 involving my outright selections in the Golf Digest Expert Picks column. And if you have been following, then you know that I, and by extension Larry, have gone 0-fer this year. We've been threatening to have him on The Loop podcast to discuss this debacle all year, and we were finally able to lock him down for Tour Championship week. It did not disappoint.

Mike Stachura

As the Wall Street types like to say, no line ever goes straight up—and the red hot golf industry is no exception. While rounds played continue toward another record pace in 2026, the report of July equipment sales figures from industry research firm Golf Datatech suggests a slowing of buying enthusiasm. Sales, often in both units and dollars, were down in bags, balls, irons, putters, shoes, wedges and woods this July compared to numbers from July 2025. Only in the big-ticket woods category were sales up in dollars (+2.1 percent). For the year, most categories are down in units sold, compared to the first seven months of 2025, although balls, wedges and putters are up in dollars, the latter some 10.5 percent higher than last year. Worth noting that the average selling price for a wood now is nearly 40 percent higher than it was before the pandemic—an average putter sells for almost $350 (about $125 more than it sold for in 2019) and the average price for a dozen balls is now more than $42.