Perhaps the least surprising thing the PGA Tour has learned since it launched its Fan Forward survey initiative last June is that it has a pace-of-play problem. What it intends to do about it has yet to be determined, but changes are coming. No, really. And Gary Young, senior vice president of rules of competitions, said a key tour constituency is making a lot of noise to address a long-running quandary.

That would be the perpetrators themselves.

“I think a lot of the feedback from the Fan Forward project has been that they would like to see the game speed up,” Young said, “and now we’re hearing it from the players themselves. I mean, it’s amazing for the first time I’m hearing guys take responsibility. For the first time. We just seem to be at a point in our company’s history right now with them becoming part owners of this business. They’re really asking, what is the best version of the PGA Tour? And they’re taking it to heart.”

Next step is taking it to the golf course. And that will be a part of a range of alterations and adjustments that the tour is planning to make in the coming months. On Wednesday at Pebble Beach several officials from the PGA Tour offered a glimpse into what will be a broader message they plan to deliver in March. The 2025 season represents “an inflexion point in the evolution of the tour,” said Andy Weitz, chief marketing and communications officer and executive vice president, and the report will spell out in greater detail the areas most crucial to improving the game’s richest tour.

The broad strokes tour officials offered on Wednesday break down into four key categories of interest: broadcast enhancements, competition relating to rules and formats, player engagement to broaden the fan base, and onsite fan experience. Of course, touching on three of those four rails is the overarching issue of pace of play. Nothing really changes if the tour can’t get a handle on a thorny issue that has dogged the game for decades. But with Strategic Sports Group ploughing $1.5 billion into the tour a year ago to facilitate growth in the product and both core and casual golf fans accessing the sport on a widening array of platforms and entertainment options, the tour feels a distinct sense of urgency to embrace change.

A common thread throughout the tour’s messaging during its 55-minute press briefing was that “everything is on the table,” and that extends beyond the pace-of-play conundrum. Asked what that meant through the prism of speeding up the game beyond the initiatives already undertaken—a reduction in field size starting in 2026 that goes hand-in-hand with cutting the fully exempt number from 125 to 100 this year—Young said the tour is likely to test the use of range finders, probably at an upcoming signature event. It is also exploring ways to expedite rules decisions, including the location of temporary movable obstructions farther from the line of play and better communications.

In addition, Young raised the possibility of penalties levied not by strokes or fines but in the form of FedEx Cup points, the coin of the realm that determines exempt status and entry into signature events such as this week’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, a $20 million no-cut tournament featuring just 80 players.

“That would certainly make it more equitable,” Young said of the points penalty. “If you think about a guy who’s in 60th place on Sunday and he gets a one-stroke penalty, what’s that cost him? Five grand? The guy that’s in second place trying to win the tournament, he goes just beyond the time, and, boy, that’s a million dollars and a title. So same crime, punishment completely different. How do we maybe solve this for more consistency? You hear it from them all the time—the money is one thing, FedEx Cup points is what they really are tracking.”

Other potential areas for change include measures such as greater transparency in regard to player news, including fines, broadcast adjustments featuring player-caddie by-play and an emphasis on a greater variety of shots while eschewing anticlimactic short putts, and leaning into other competitive formats. That would include changing the format for the Tour Championship, something that could be implemented this year.

“Fans are telling us they want to see consequential play. They want to see more drama … in every round,” said Billy Schroeder, senior vice president, competitions.

“And I think I headline that by saying great competition is entertaining,” Weitz added. “I think we really should be focused on that idea. When competition has meaning, it engages fans. And if we do that well, a lot of the rest of it will take care of itself. We’ve got to stay focused on that.

“I think if the voice of the fans is at the centre of what we do, we’re on the right path.”

Schroeder implemented the Fan Forward survey project in June in three stages starting with its Fan Council, a group that the tour formed in 2017 to start getting feedback on various issues. Then the tour expanded the survey to non-core fans and then went back for a third wave of questions “testing tactics based on what we learned,” Weitz said, that gave respondents choices on how the tour should proceed with potential changes.

Tyler Dennis, senior vice president and chief of operations, said that “big picture” developments over the past year is enabling the tour to take a critical look at many issues in its operations. But everyone seems to agree that there is one issue that probably deserves top priority.

“It’s really an opportunity is probably the word I would use,” Dennis said. “It’s a very positive opportunity that … I’m repeating, but it’s really important. There’s lots of different things we’re trying to address here. Pace of play isn’t one thing.

“It’s many different things. Yeah, round times, that’s one thing. Player behavior’s another. All of the technology and how we can improve flow is another thing. So it’s an opportunity really that we haven’t had previously that we now have, so that’s why this inflection point is occurring.”

Remember these words: Everything is on the table. It better be a big table.

Main Image: James Gilbert