Jack Nicklaus Criticizes PGA Tour's Six-Month Schedule Plan
jack nicklaus said Tuesday he is not in favor of the PGA Tour's planned schedule changes, opening a public challenge to an overhaul that would compress the season into six months. The 18-time major winner wants a conversation with Brian Rolapp and Jay Monahan before the plan moves any further.
Nicklaus at Muirfield Village
Speaking at Muirfield Village during his pre-Memorial press conference, Nicklaus said he had not yet had that conversation, but wanted one. "Well, I don’t want to comment on the [PGA] Tour’s schedule because I’m not exactly in favor of what they’re doing right now. But I really haven’t had a conversation. I want to sit down with Brian [Rolapp] and Jay [Monahan] and have that conversation," he said.
The Memorial Tournament is holding its 50th playing this week, and Nicklaus used the platform to push back on the direction of the schedule rather than wait for the changes to be set. His concern was not about one event alone, but about how a tighter calendar would stack the biggest tournaments closer together.
Big events and small openings
"I mean, I hate to see tournaments bunched too much together with too many big tournaments too close together. That’s a problem, I think," he said. Nicklaus also pointed to the Cognizant Classic in Florida as an example of a smaller event that could get squeezed out if the calendar is compressed.
"I mean, what chance does that tournament have? I mean, it sits right in the middle of those. They don’t have a chance," he said of the Cognizant Classic. The issue he raised was simple: if the top players are being pulled into a narrow window, the events around them lose room to stand out.
Six-month schedule push
The PGA Tour's leadership is planning a schedule overhaul with the goal of compressing the season into six months, a move Nicklaus said would make the calendar harder on players as well as smaller tournaments. "To jam it all in in one period of time, and then leave the rest of the year open, I think it’s tough," he said.
He added that players need time off to recharge their batteries, saying he could play "a couple weeks in a row, maybe three weeks in a row," but still needed time off. That leaves the tour with a straightforward choice: keep trying to condense the schedule, or shape it around the breathing room Nicklaus says the game still needs.
