Returning from a 17-year hiatus, the Skins Game is back on the PGA Tour calendar. While anticipation rises over its innovative game format, golf insiders Rex Hoggard and Ryan Lavner don’t exactly seem pleased with the event. They are worried about golf being out there, a little too much.

“It does feel like the landscape is on the verge, if it hasn’t already, of being oversaturated. Like, there’s so much golf, and there’s this narrative that you and I have talked about that there’s probably too much PGA Tour golf. If anything, if you want to make the PGA Tour product stronger, you need to be eliminating events, not adding events,” Ryan Lanver said at the Golf Channel podcast, raising concerns over the quality and the exclusivity of the PGA Tour, with an increasing number of events.

The Skins Game, Tour’s unofficial money event, will stream live on November 28, Black Friday, on Amazon Prime Video. Featuring Justin Thomas, Tommy Fleetwood, Keegan Bradley, and Xander Schauffele, with no appearance fees, the event boasts a $4 million prize pool. The reverse purse format adds intrigue. However, Lavner believes that the Tour is losing its value with yet another tournament always around the corner.

Reminiscing about the time the PGA Tour boasted more scarcity, Lavner shared that the events have lost their zeal with a diluted schedule. Especially so during the fall stretch of the Tour, when Lavner believes the fans need to miss golf to be back on the beat in January when next season starts with The Sentry.

“The more that you get in the fall, when we’re supposed to not be seeing these players, when we’re supposed to be missing golf, when we’re supposed to be missing these players, when we absolutely cannot wait for the calendar to turn so that the PGA Tour can begin again, but all of a sudden, they’re popping up at various sort of one-off events throughout the fall. I think it does dilute it just a little bit more.”

Co-host Rex Hoggard agreed with Lavner’s sentiment. The latter admitted to giving the match a try even though he ended up switching it off 15 minutes later. This brings forward the lackluster appeal of the game and the congested try-hard schedule of the Tour.

But it’s not just Lavner and Hoggard who have expressed their contempt for the saturated PGA Tour schedule. Others have done it too.

The golf world raises red flags against the Tour’s schedule

With the arrival of the new CEO, Brian Rolapp, the tour underwent multiple changes. That included changes to the schedule and the addition of new signature events. The latter sparked widespread criticism, with golf veterans speaking up to keep their stance on the Miami Championship. Moreover, the board has added two more signature events between the Masters and the PGA Championship—the RBC Heritage and the Truist Championship. This has added more pressure to the already demanding PGA Tour schedule.

“I see when golf fans start to get tired of the stream of events that overwhelms them,” shared Rory McIlroy in a past interview. He emphasized the need to reduce the number of events to preserve the relevance of the Tour. Quite the contrary, the new PGA Tour schedule has overwhelmed the already tiring season.

Quipping on the no-cut $20 million event, Bob Harig added, “It’s horrible for the rest of the PGA Tour regular events, which at least had some hope of name players working those tournaments into their schedule. But now there is yet another $20 million tournament—without a 36-hole cut—as competition.” According to him, the new signature event barely adds any value to the golfing season, with no direct competition.

Golf veteran Lucas Glover went so far as to call the Miami Championship a “money grab,” expressing how the PGA Tour is far from developing. “Nothing that has happened in the last two years in golf, in my opinion, will help the game. I’ve yet to figure out what’s so bad out here that we had to do all the things we’ve done,” shared Glover.

Erik Van Rooyen commented on the limited field sizes and the reduced number of tour cards, reflecting the subtle monopoly of the top golf stars. Criticizing the limited field sizes, Rooyen remarked candidly, “How honest do you want me to be? I hate it. I strongly believe that the strongest fields are the ones with the most players in them.”

As is clear, the entire golfing world seems to be holding strong opinions against the Tour’s schedule. Whether that’s the Skins Game or the new signature events, golfers and analysts alike are far from pleased.