PGA Tour Official Admits Uncertainty On No-Cut Designated Event Plan

The 2024 PGA Tour schedule is due to be finalised later in the summer, but, according to one of its executives, there is still no decision on whether its designated events will have cuts.

The idea to introduce limited-field, no-cut events was announced by the PGA Tour in March. However, there was an almost immediate backlash to the proposal by some players. One who voiced concern about the idea was 15-time Major winner Tiger Woods. 

At The Masters in April, he said: "There's still some ongoing discussions about some of the designated events and whether or not we're going to have cuts going forward. I certainly am pushing for my event [the Genesis Invitational] to have a cut."

Despite that, PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan hinted in May that the organisation would likely push ahead with proposal, saying: "Our preference would be no-cut events."

However, per the Golf Channel, the PGA Tour’s chief tournaments and competitions officer, Andy Pazder, has admitted that nothing is yet set in stone. He said: “We are having a further conversation about that. I’m aware that certain hosts of designated events have voiced the viewpoint that they’d like to see a cut at their event or some of the designated events.

“We’ve announced that they would be no-cut events but that’s something that if there’s support for a change there, could be that it’s some of the designated events, all of the designated events or none of the designated events [have a cut], we’ll have a conversation around that.”

Even as recently as this week, the issue of whether cuts at designated events will be discarded has been in the spotlight. World No.2 Jon Rahm admitted he has changed his mind. After initially voicing approval of the move, he said before the Memorial Tournament: "I was an advocate for no cut and the more time has gone by I've become an advocate for a cut. So I think it's a part of the game and I think it's an important part of the game, as harsh as it may be to cut out maybe only 20 players.”

Elsewhere, the host of the tournament at Muirfield Village, Jack Nicklaus seemed less concerned, saying: “I don't care either way. Obviously from our standpoint here it's a heck of a lot easier to take care of 70 or 80 players, whatever it might be, than it is 120. But I liked the cut before because we felt like having people play all day was nice to have on the golf course, giving some young guys an opportunity to play that might not otherwise get a chance to play.”

Pazder also revealed the emphasis is on creating a better flow than 2023, which saw the likes of The Honda Classic suffer as it fell immediately between two designated events. He continued: “The process we have gone through leading up to announcing [next year’s] schedule is we now have the ability to put together a flow to the schedule that will not have isolated events.”

That would likely see a pattern of designated events falling consecutively, followed by several full-field events, before the next set of designated events and so on. Pazder also revealed the schedule is “90-plus percent completed.” Whether it will involve a significant number of no-cut tournaments remains to be seen.