Imagine a playground where the cool kids lock the treehouse door behind them. That describes the current PGA Tour ecosystem perfectly. Yeah, we are talking about Signature Events. Top golfers, competing for hefty checks. Other golfers? Grinding hard in a full-field event just to survive. The system allows its star players to play with a less hectic schedule while earning significantly more money. Harris English has a timeline in mind to curb the issue.

“Yeah, I think that’s what they’re going to change down the road, maybe in 2027, is have all the tournaments be equal and not have the eight elevated events and the regular events. They’ll have 20, 22 events that are all the same. I think that’s a good model to have. That’s where you’ll see all the top players play every single event because you can’t really afford to take one off,” English said at the RSM Classic. Currently, stars like Scottie Scheffler can skip a tournament and stay safe, but in the new system, they “can’t really afford to take one off”. They either show up to play every week or fall behind.

“As it goes for the elevated events, like I love — even if they weren’t elevated. I’d probably play all of them. I have for a long time. Really, Pebble’s the only one that I didn’t play for a good amount of time in my career, just where it fell in the schedule. I love playing on the West Coast. I love kind of getting off to that started of playing a lot of events over there and get your season started off good,” English elaborated, saying the pros don’t really need elevated events.

And though it’ll be a very win-win situation for the fans, Tour, and sponsors but the relentless schedule demands peak physical conditioning from every participant. Playing over 20 high-pressure events in a condensed season is a marathon, and English ended, saying, “We’ll see where it goes. I think they’ll go more where 20 events are all the same, all the points, all the money, everything the same.” Harris English isn’t the only golfer calling out signature events. Lucas Glover has been one of the loudest ones.

“I’ve been on record as saying I was not a fan of these when they hatched the idea of them,” the 2009 US Open champion told the Golf Channel. “I didn’t like them then and I have been in most of them since they started and I still don’t like them. I’ve been on the record as saying I don’t like cutting 200 cards and I still don’t. I think it’s getting too exclusive and we’re not giving enough opportunity and I’ve been pretty outspoken about that. I think the majority would agree with that but unfortunately it doesn’t sound like the majority matters. So it is what it is at this point and we’re just dealing with it.”

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Harris English knows exactly how hard life is outside that protected circle

A year ago, English looked in from the outside, missing the signature events. But he put his head down and won the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines last February. Now he returns to the RSM Classic as the field’s highest-ranked player for the 14th time. The World No. 11 understands what it takes to conquer the current cutthroat system after falling outside the bubble.

The driving force behind this is new CEO Brian Rolapp, who comes from the NFL and sees the Tour in a “different light.” English noted that the goal posts are moving under this new leadership. So, the season might start after the Super Bowl. It can turn golf into a high-stakes league just like the NFL season, but a later start date creates casualties among historic early-season tournaments. And even events like the Sony Open in Hawaii could vanish from the calendar entirely.

“The talk of the Tour potentially starting after the Super Bowl, I think, is a pretty good thing because we can’t really compete with football,”  English also hinted. “It’s going to keep evolving. We’ve got some smart guys at the helm. Now with Brian Rolapp coming in, he’s seeing the PGA Tour in a different light. Sometimes change is good. I get that they want all the best players playing together more often, and I think that’s what they’re going to change down the road, maybe in 2027, is have all the tournaments be equal and not have the eight elevated events and the regular events.”

At 36 years old, English knows this pace will only get harder for older veterans and how tough it will be for him to adapt quickly. But at the end, he accepts everyone is working “for the good of the PGA Tour,” and he is ready to play wherever and whenever they tell him.