Fans wanted a more difficult course. Here is how the PGA Tour responds

This is the time of year for figures. All kinds of them. FedEx Cup points. Ryder Cup ranking. Top 70, Top 50, Top 30. These are all songs. But an important set of numbers is overlooked as players Jockey for positions in August. And the tour wants to do something about it, by letting East Lake Golf Club play as hard as ever.

Do you remember Jay Monahan’s press conference of March at the players’ championship? Seven different times he called ‘Fan Forward’, the Catch-All initiative that the Tour has recorded to push his product ahead While listening to Fans. The Tour investigated more than 50,000 fans to hear which problems and improvements need the most attention, and countries on four important modes for change.

Among them: Adjusting the competition hurking part that seems needed and in many ways directly focused on the long-knitted tour championship.

But why?

When a majority of the 50,000 fans categorize your seasonal championship as ‘needs work’, you need one Why? An answer would be the TV reviews of what should be one of the crown jewel events of the Tour has been knocked down to the level of most touring events. The 2.7 rating that the Tour Championship did last year, for example, hardly knew what the John Deere Classic did this summer. (You could expect that reviews should be automatic in 2025, but we will see.) The Bottom Line: Golffans talk with their eyeballs or their survey answers, and the Tour has an interest in getting more eyeballs by listening to those reactions.

The Startstoks disability will reward from those top players for their seasonal performance. In a classic, 72-hole battle play competition, East Lake comes. To make it known, the tour marketing team has taken out a “straight” commercial campaign, with an ode to Paula Abdul no lessViewers remind us that the Tour Championship starts with a level playing field.

The tour was asked by many of the respondents to make the Tour Championship stand out at the Tour schedule as one of the most difficult tournaments to win, and therefore the FedEx Cup one of the most difficult prizes to win. In other words, make it difficult to go to East Lake and make East Lake hard when you arrive there. During last year’s four rounds, the performance of 66-63-67-66 of Collin Morikawa 22 would be 22 under par. Sahith teagala shot 21. Scottie Scheffler, who benefited from 10 “starting regions” still shot 20 under par without them.

So how does the Tour defend itself against low scores? The rules committee is about to show us.

Last week, players received a few instructions in a monthly newsletter shared by the Tour. The set -up to East Lake will contain a handful of changes to push the winning score back in the direction of a few figures under par.

To start with, par will be changed from 71 to 70 by turning the par-5 14th hole back In a long par-4. In the 2024 edition of the event, the 14th played as a 580-yard par-5 after the renovation of Andrew Green. The hole played 60 meters longer than in 2023, which corresponds to a 4.33 average, the easiest score (too par) on the building. A year earlier, at 520 meters, it played up to a 4,125 average, the 4th Toughest. In 2025, with playing 530 meters, search for the 15th return to that 4th Toughest area in the score card.

Just like that, they have eliminated four strokes (according to par). But wait! There is more.

The rough on East Lake will also be cut longer than ever before. In 2021 the Tour Championship was played with the rugged at 2.5 centimeters over the site. In two weeks, the rough of East Lake will be cut around 3.5 inches, at least half a centimeter longer than the tournament has seen in the past. It is not entirely the rough length that the famous Difficult Memorial Tournament offers players, but it is close.

De groene snelheden bij East Lake zullen ook worden opgedraaid, dus de putting oppervlakken lopen met een snelheid van 13,5 voet, in plaats van, bijvoorbeeld 13 voet, zoals het geval was in 2021. Een handvol andere veranderingen worden geïmplementeerd in individuele gaten, zoals de fairway op 17 worden beperkt, of extra bomen die in zeven verschillende fairways worden beantwoord, maar die van de wegen van de fairways zijn, maar die van de wegen van de Faired fairways are, but those of the roads in the eastern Lake are near the Fairways-Faired Moves.

Let’s be clear about one thing – this is all very subtle. It has become an increasingly loaded practice to challenge the best golfers in the world. But extra thick rough, longer holes and noticeably faster greens? It will rise to something The boys sign up for a few weeks on the scorecards. Will it be enough to get the winning count to a few figures under par, instead of 22 below? We will wait. Meanwhile, pray for wind.