For years, the performer formerly known as the Honda Classic was one of the must-watch stops on the PGA Tour. The Honda Classic, held at the tough PGA National, served as the opening event for the PGA Tour’s Florida Swing and annually welcomed the game’s best. Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas, Adam Scott and Rickie Fowler are all past champions. Tiger Woods, Justin Rose, Sergio Garcia, Brooks Koepka and others have broken down on several occasions.
In the mid-2010s the Honda Classic, now called the Cognizant Classic on the Palm Beachesattracted top players, many of whom call Florida home, by offering the chance to play a tough course for a purse that was in the same ballpark as stops at Pebble Beach, Riviera and Bay Hill. The Players Championship used to be held in May, which meant the Arnold Palmer Invitational wasn’t held until late March, and the Honda had a sweet spot between Riviera and the WGC at Trump Doral. With purses worth $6 million and players playing only in select West Coast events, the Honda Classic endured and was a popular tournament.
But times began to change in 2019 when the Players Championship moved to March and the Arnold Palmer Invitational was placed between that championship and the Honda. PGA National still had a good field until LIV Golf arrived and the Signature Event model was introduced in 2023. Suddenly, the Cognizant found itself trailing two West Coast events with $20 million purses, and ahead of the API ($20 million purse) and the players ($25 million).
That change left the Cognizant in the lurch. With the top players all starring in the $20 million events, the field began to hemorrhage and now finds itself in an uncertain future as new PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp and the Future Competitions Committee, led by Tiger Woods, look to reshape the PGA Tour schedule with ‘scarcity’ in mind.
The Cognizant’s weak place in the PGA Tour’s future schedule was further highlighted on Monday when Ben Griffin, Adam Scott and Jacob Bridgeman, three of the top betting favorites, all withdrew from this week’s event. This week’s Cognizant features just one player in the world’s top 30 (Ryan Gerard) and only eight out of the top 50. Brooks Koepka, Billy Horschel and Gary Woodland will make the start, but for the most part the buzz has faded from an event that used to signal the start of the run to the Masters.
“It’s a shame,” Thomas said after last night’s TGL match in Cognizant’s weaker field. “It’s one of those events that fell at an unfortunate time in the schedule. I think it’s both a good and a bad thing about our schedule, how great it is and the number of great golf courses we go to.”
“It kills me that I can’t play Torrey Pines every year. Like Torrey Pines South, to me, that’s such a great golf course. It suits my eye so well. I love the North Course, but I can’t play it every year. Or Colonial is an event from the past where – I love Colonial. I think that golf course is incredible, but I can’t play four or five in a row.”
The Signature Event model has done its job, but it has also segmented the PGA Tour into a group of star-studded, limited-field events and full-field events that occasionally attract stars but are primarily used as a way for players to work their way into the bigger events. That’s why Fowler played in the Cognizant last year, but won’t be competing this year after punching his ticket to all Signature Events. That’s why Koepka, who is not eligible for sponsorship invitations to Signature Events this year, is in the field this week. It’s also a home game for him.
World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler has played three tournaments in a row and four in five weeks. He’s taking a week off with two more March starts on deck. Several other big names made three straight appearances, all playing in the last two weeks. With the Arnold Palmer Invitational and the Players on the horizon, choices have to be made. The Cognizant is on the other side of these decisions.
“It’s difficult with any tournament on the PGA TOUR schedule, outside of Signature Events, for a multitude of reasons,” Horschel said at TGL. “We had this problem before the Signature Events came along. We’ve always had this problem. Ten years ago this event was incredible with the field, but where it fell in the schedule was really good for a lot of the guys that lived here. … This field has kind of gone up and down the last few years. When you have that many events on the PGA Tour schedule and you have guys trying to figure out where they fit, it’s hard to fill a field.
“It’s not just Cognizant. A whole bunch of tournaments are struggling.”
Rumors of a possible new PGA Tour schedule, expected to launch in 2027 with adjustments to follow the following year, have circulated in recent months. Woods has said that the FCC, which includes Patrick Cantlay, Adam Scott, Camilo Villegas, Maverick McNealy and Keith Mitchell, along with a number of business executives, has considered numerous ideas to appease players, fans and sponsors. For all intents and purposes, the goal for Rolapp, Woods and the FCC is to reduce the schedule to 22-25 events, play in the biggest markets, start around the Super Bowl and end before Labor Day. Enjoy the summer, take a few weeks off, let all the top players play, make the Tour more competitive and avoid running afoul of the NFL calendar. Fewer cards, fewer starts, more buzz. Limited, scarce, simple and competitive.
You get the point.
Those charged with shaping the future of the PGA Tour will ultimately decide the fate of tournaments like the Cognizant. But as the PGA Tour becomes a more tiered system, with the haves and have-nots becoming more clearly defined, the writing may already be on the wall.
Less is more, and ultimately there are only so many seats at the table.
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