Five things to know: 2024 PGA TOUR schedule

The 2024 PGA TOUR schedule has arrived, and it promises to deliver drama and tension throughout the year.

With the TOUR’s return to a calendar-year schedule, 2024 will kick off with the “Opening Drive” at The Sentry and Sony Open in Hawaii. The Sentry also is the first of eight Signature Events for 2024, which in addition to the majors, THE PLAYERS and the FedExCup Playoffs, will provide a consistent cadence of tournaments that fans can circle on their calendars, knowing the best players in the world will be participating.

“We are excited about the roll-out of the PGA TOUR’s reimagined schedule,” said PGA TOUR Commissioner Jay Monahan, “and what the season will offer to our fans: a January start with stars competing head-to-head more often, alongside the weekly drama of life-altering moments and the emergence of new stars.”

To get you ready for 2024, here are five things you need to know about next year’s schedule:

1. SIGNATURE EVENTS

Eight Signature Events are featured on the new schedule. These events, referred to as Designated Events in 2023, will showcase the TOUR’s top players at tournaments and venues that fans are intimately familiar with. These events will offer increased purses and FedExCup points, with winners earning 700 points (compared to 500 for Full-Field Events).

The eight Signature Events for 2024 are:

* The Sentry (Jan. 1-7)
* AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am (Jan. 29-Feb. 4)
* The Genesis Invitational (Feb. 12-18)
* Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard (March 4-10)
* RBC Heritage (April 15-21)
* Wells Fargo Championship (May 6-12)
* the Memorial Tournament presented by Workday (June 3-9)
* Travelers Championship (June 17-23)

The three player-hosted invitationals (Tiger Woods’ Genesis Invitational, Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard and Jack Nicklaus’ Memorial Tournament presented by Workday) will feature a 36-hole cut to the top 50 players and ties, as well as any players within 10 strokes of the lead. The remaining five Signature Events will not have a cut.

Signature Events are expected to have field sizes between 70-80 players. They will be comprised of the top 50 from the previous year’s FedExCup, top performers (10) in the current-year FedExCup standings, top performers (five) through the most recent swing of Full-Field Events and Additional Events, PGA TOUR winners and PGA TOUR members in the top 30 of the Official World Golf Ranking. (See below for criteria.)

The Sentry will feature the top 50 from the 2023 FedExCup standings along with all PGA TOUR winners from the 2023 calendar year.

The Signature Events are among 15 tournaments in 2024 that offer 700 or more FedExCup points to their winners. THE PLAYERS and majors will offer 750 points (up from 600) and the first two FedExCup Playoffs events award 2,000.

2. THE CADENCE

Thanks to multiple opportunities throughout the season for players to qualify for the Signature Events, the 2024 schedule carries a cadence and interplay between the Signature and Full-Field Events.

Earning spots in Signature Events adds another storyline to the pursuit of TOUR titles and FedExCup points, and the placement of Signature Events alongside THE PLAYERS and majors creates several multi-week stretches of premier golf.

The Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard and THE PLAYERS Championship will be held in back-to-back weeks in March. The Masters will be played four weeks later and will immediately be followed by the RBC Heritage. The Wells Fargo Championship and the PGA Championship will be played in consecutive weeks in May and the Memorial Tournament presented by Workday will begin a three-week stretch of golf that includes the U.S. Open and the Travelers Championship.

The Full-Field Events will offer opportunities for stars to compete against players seeking to climb golf’s meritocracy. In addition to the Signature Events, top players will continue to visit their favorite stops and compete in the Full-Field Events. Competition between these big names and the TOUR’s up-and-comers, the players trying to unseat those atop golf’s meritocracy, creates compelling drama.

The Swing 10 and The Next 5 allow in-form players to earn spots in those Signature Events. The top 10 players in the current-season FedExCup standings who are not already exempt will earn a spot in Signature Event fields, as will the top performers in Full-Field events preceding the Signature Events.

This chart shows the cutoff dates and events that will determine those spots in Signature Events.

3. ON THE MOVE

Several events have moved places in the schedule. The most noticeable is the Texas Children’s Houston Open going from the fall to two weeks prior to the Masters. Along with the following week’s Valero Texas Open, the TOUR will spend two weeks in the Lone Star State before the Masters.

The Mexico Open at Vidanta moves from April to the final week of February. The tournament, held on Mexico’s West Coast, now follows The Genesis Invitational in Pacific Palisades, California, and precedes the TOUR’s move to the East Coast.

The AT&T Byron Nelson, traditionally held the week after the Wells Fargo Championship, will be played the week prior (April 29-May 5). The Wells Fargo Championship (May 6-12) will now lead directly into the PGA Championship.

The RBC Canadian Open and the Memorial Tournament presented by Workday swapped dates. The RBC Canadian Open will now be the week before the Memorial Tournament. The Memorial will precede the 2024 U.S. Open at North Carolina’s Pinehurst Resort.

There will also be a one-week break between the 3M Open and the Wyndham Championship to accommodate the Olympic Men's Golf Competition on Aug. 1-4 at Le Golf National in Paris, France.

4. NEW PLACES

The PGA TOUR heads to three new venues in 2024.

The BMW Championship will be played at Castle Pines Golf Club in Castle Rock, Colorado, about 25 miles south of Denver. The Jack Nicklaus-designed course will look familiar to longtime TOUR fans. It hosted The International from 1986 to 2006, a modified Stableford event on TOUR. Past champions at Castle Pines include Davis Love III, Ernie Els, Vijay Singh and Lee Janzen. It will host the second FedExCup Playoffs event in 2024.

The TOUR also is debuting a new event in the renowned golf destination of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and returning to Utah for the first time in decades.

The Myrtle Beach Classic on May 6-12 is a 300-FedExCup point event that will be played the same week as the Wells Fargo Championship in Charlotte, North Carolina. It debuts at Dunes Golf & Beach Club, a Robert Trent Jones-designed course that hosted PGA TOUR Champions’ Charles Schwab Cup Championship from 1994 to 1999 and was the site of the PGA TOUR Q-School Finals in 1973, where three-time defending NCAA champion Ben Crenshaw took medalist honors.

Utah’s Black Desert Resort will host a new tournament, the Black Desert Championship, during the FedExCup Fall. Tournament dates will be announced at a later date along with the remainder of the schedule for the FedExCup Fall, the portion of the season where eligibility will be finalized for 2025. It will be the first PGA TOUR event contested in Utah in more than 60 years.

The majors are re-visiting familiar venues in 2024. Both the U.S. Open (Pinehurst No. 2) and PGA Championship (Valhalla Golf Club) are being held at courses that they last used in 2014. Valhalla is the site of Rory McIlroy’s most recent major victory. The Open returns to Royal Troon for the first time since 2016.

The Presidents Cup will be held next year at The Royal Montreal Golf Club in Quebec, Canada. The club hosted the 2014 RBC Canadian Open and the 2007 Presidents Cup.

5. CALENDAR-YEAR SCHEDULE

For the first time since 2012, the PGA TOUR will operate on a calendar-year schedule.

The first of 36 Regular Season tournaments will be played in Maui, Hawaii, in the first week of January, followed by three FedExCup Playoffs events. The FedExCup champion will be crowned Sept. 1 at the TOUR Championship in Atlanta.

The 2024 FedExCup Fall, which will finalize eligibility for the 2025 season, will start in September after the conclusion of the TOUR Championship. Finishers Nos. 71-125 at the conclusion of the FedExCup Fall – in addition to all who qualified for the FedExCup Playoffs -- will be exempt into all Full-Field Events in 2025. Winners in the FedExCup Fall receive a two-year exemption, an exemption into THE PLAYERS Championship as well as other majors and invitationals.

Additionally, Nos. 51-60 at the conclusion of the FedExCup Fall will qualify for the two Signature Events following The Sentry (AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and The Genesis Invitational).