Mark Schlabach
ATLANTA — After solely three weeks on the job, new PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp is promising “vital change” to the tour’s present mannequin.
Rolapp, chatting with reporters Wednesday on the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Membership, introduced he has shaped a nine-person future competitors committee that might be led by 15-time main champion Tiger Woods.
“The aim isn’t incremental change,” Rolapp mentioned. “The aim is important change.”
Woods added Wednesday in a social media submit that the committee “is about shaping the following period of the PGA Tour.”
Honored to function Chairman of the Future Competitors Committee. That is about shaping the following period of the PGA TOUR – for our followers, gamers and companions.
Due to @BrianRolapp for his imaginative and prescient and management, and grateful to the committee members for his or her willingness to… https://t.co/d1SEdKTg4C
— Tiger Woods (@TigerWoods) August 20, 2025
Rolapp’s cost to the committee is “to design the most effective skilled golf aggressive mannequin on the planet for the good thing about PGA Tour followers, gamers and their companions. It’s geared toward a holistic relook of how we compete on the tour.”
The committee might be guided by governing rules of parity, shortage and ease and might be given a “clear sheet” to “guarantee potential modifications honor the traditions of the sport with out being overly certain by them,” in response to the PGA Tour.
The committee’s objectives embody strengthening the tour’s dedication to a meritocratic construction, rising fan engagement by bringing prime golfers collectively extra usually and higher connecting the common season to the postseason.
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“The sports activities enterprise isn’t that sophisticated,” mentioned Rolapp, a former NFL govt. “You get the product proper, you get the proper companions, your followers will reward you with their time as a result of they’re telling you it is good they usually need extra of it, after which the business and the enterprise half will handle itself.
“You then simply need to continually innovate. I feel if there’s something I discovered on the NFL, it is that. We didn’t sit nonetheless [and we] modified guidelines each March. We modified the kickoff rule. That is what I imply by honoring custom however not being certain by it. I feel that stage of innovation is what we’ll do right here, and I feel that is one lesson I’ve discovered.”
The committee will even embody PGA Tour gamers Patrick Cantlay, Adam Scott, Camilo Villegas, Maverick McNealy and Keith Mitchell, in addition to former Valero Vitality chairman and CEO Joe Gorder, Fenway Sports activities Group principal proprietor John Henry and Fenway senior adviser Theo Epstein, a former basic supervisor of the Boston Crimson Sox and Chicago Cubs.
Rolapp mentioned he appointed Epstein to the committee as a result of he has a “monitor report in different sports activities, together with baseball, and has wrestled with these identical aggressive points, and I feel we will be taught from his expertise.”
Epstein, a particular guide to MLB, was instrumental in introducing the pitch clock and different rule modifications similar to restricted pickoff makes an attempt and defensive shifts and larger bases to hurry up play in baseball.
“I’ll definitely convey expertise from my work on the Nationwide Soccer League in comparable issues,” Rolapp mentioned. “I feel exterior perspective is at all times an excellent factor so long as it is utilized in the proper method.”
Rolapp mentioned he has not but spoken to anybody from Saudi Arabia’s Public Funding Fund, which has financed the rival LIV Golf League.
The PGA Tour and the PIF signed a framework settlement to kind an alliance in June 2023. The edges nonetheless have not reached a deal and have not talked in months, in response to sources.
Outgoing PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, Woods and Scott met with PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan on the White Home on Feb. 20 however could not hammer out a deal. President Donald Trump has additionally been concerned within the talks.
The PGA Tour introduced Tuesday that it’s returning to Trump Nationwide Doral in Miami subsequent season for the primary time since 2016. The course owned by the president will host a $20 million signature occasion on the primary weekend in Might.
“I feel everybody is happy about returning to a course [where] now we have a long time of expertise,” Rolapp mentioned. “I feel the gamers are excited. I feel we’re wanting ahead to bringing that again as a PGA Tour custom.”
ESPN reported in April that the PGA Tour rejected the PIF’s most up-to-date supply to speculate $1.5 billion into PGA Tour Enterprises, the tour’s for-profit entity, which got here with the caveat that the LIV Golf League would stay intact.
The PIF additionally wished Al-Rumayyan to function co-chairman of PGA Tour Enterprises’ board. Gorder is chairman of the PGA Tour Enterprises board, and Woods serves as vice chairman.
Sources instructed ESPN final week that Al-Rumayyan has instructed LIV Golf League gamers and managers that he “can maintain his breath so long as anybody.”
“I’ve not spoken to anybody from the Public Funding Fund,” Rolapp mentioned. “I have been right here for 3 weeks, so my focus has clearly been on the [PGA] Tour and specializing in the tour and in studying and beginning to develop a little bit of a imaginative and prescient for the long run.”
When Rolapp was requested whether or not reunification and reaching a take care of PIF was a excessive precedence, he mentioned, “I feel my major focus goes to be on strengthening the tour, and clean sheet of paper means clean sheet of paper. No matter does that, I am going to pursue aggressively. That is how I view it.”
“I’d supply to you that the most effective assortment of golfers on the planet are on the PGA Tour,” Rolapp mentioned. “I feel there is a bunch of metrics that show that, from rankings to viewership to no matter you need to decide. I’ll lean into that and strengthen that.”
Rolapp, who spent 22 years working on the NFL and was thought of by many to be commissioner Roger Goodell’s eventual successor, was employed because the PGA Tour’s first CEO on June 17.
Masters winner Rory McIlroy mentioned he spent about 90 minutes speaking to Rolapp for the primary time final week.
“I like him. I like him rather a lot,” McIlroy mentioned. “I like that he would not come from golf. I like that he would not have any preconceived concepts of what golf ought to appear to be or what the tour ought to appear to be. I feel he will convey a contemporary perspective to every thing, and I feel he needs to maneuver fairly fast, so I am excited.”
