An 85-year-old legend and a 13-year-old prodigy can share the same Sunday leaderboard. That’s only possible because the PNC Championship refuses to send anyone home early, and we are not complaining.

The 2025 PNC Championship operates without a cut line, and the field reflects that promise. Every team that tees off on Saturday, December 20, will return on Sunday, December 21, regardless of how their first round unfolded. This isn’t how professional golf typically works. Standard PGA Tour events start with 144+ players and trim the field to roughly 65 after 36 holes.

Bernhard Langer returns with son Jason, chasing a seventh title and third consecutive victory. John Daly and John Daly II bring their grip-it-and-rip-it firepower back to Orlando. Annika Sorenstam partners with son Will McGee, while Nelly Korda teams up with tennis legend father Petr Korda. Lee Trevino, 85, will walk all 36 holes alongside son Daniel. Tiger Woods and Charlie Woods, however, won’t be there as the latter is recovering from a back surgery.

But why does this format just work for this family affair? The answer lies in the following three reasons:

• Television and entertainment value come first. The event exists to showcase legends playing alongside their kids. A cut would risk sending marquee names home after 18 holes. Imagine Lee Trevino, 85 years young, eliminated on Saturday. NBC loses a storytelling pillar for the Sunday broadcast.
• Field size logic follows. With only 20 teams, a cut is mathematically redundant. Standard events need field reduction to manage the pace of play across 144+ competitors. The PNC handles its intimate field without friction.
• Then there’s atmosphere. This is a celebration of family and golf, not a survival examination. No father watches his son walk off early. No daughter packs her bag because of a missed putt on 17.

If there is no threat of elimination, the psychology transforms as golfers stop thinking about survival. Instead, they start thinking about birdies. Maybe this is why Team Langer set the benchmark at 28-under in 2024.

But what exactly makes this format work? The scramble structure holds the answer.

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What Is the Format of the 2025 PNC Championship?

The PNC Championship runs as a 36-hole two-person scramble: a format that fundamentally rewires how golf is played. Both team members hit tee shots. They assess the results, weighing distance, lie, and angle of approach. The best drive wins. Both players then hit their next shots from that chosen spot. This recursive process continues until the ball drops. One score per hole. Two chances at every shot.

In individual stroke play, a poor approach costs a stroke. In a scramble, the odds of both players missing simultaneously plummet. This creates a natural division of labor: one player anchors with a safe shot, the other attacks with abandon. If the first player finds the fairway, the second can grip it and rip it without consequence. The putting green is where this advantage compounds. The first putt becomes a sighter: speed, break, all revealed. The second player reads the data and fires with near-perfect information.

The PNC Championship is not an official PGA Tour tournament. There are no FedEx Cup points yet it remains sanctioned by PGA Tour Champions, carrying a $1,085,000 purse with $200,000 and the Willie Park Trophy awaiting the winners.