Stephen Ames once famously said that anything could happen in his match against Tiger Woods given his form. Woods went on to defeat him 9 and 8 at the 2006 WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship. It was the most lopsided defeat the event had ever seen. Asked afterward if the result carried a message, the Big Cat offered this with a broad smile: “I think he understands now.”

The Match Play era produced memorable moments like this more than once. The 2023 WGC Dell Technologies Match Play was the last of this series of tournaments. There was a demand for it, and the PGA Tour understood the importance. Brian Rolapp, the current CEO of the Tour, announced that from 2028 the Tour Championship will be contested as a match-play event, and Tiger Woods chimed in.

“The conclusion of the season should be worthy of the journey it takes to get there,” the two-time FedExCup winner wrote on X. “Today’s announcement is a result of the hard work and passion of our players. Excited to usher in a new era of match play on the @PGATOUR.”

The 82-time PGA Tour winner has dominated match play for most of his career, and his words land after PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp used almost identical language at the press conference in Atlanta ahead of this week’s 2026 Tour Championship.

Rolapp confirmed the new format set to take on the Tour Championship in 2028. The top 90 players on the season-long points list will contest a Championship Series finale, a 72-hole stroke play event. Top 32 from there will advance straight to the reimagined standalone Tour Championship.

Answering every question you have about new Tour Championship

The Tour Championship, in itself, will be a two-week affair. Yes, two weeks. “It’s a match play over two weeks, an opportunity to make this an extended moment that commands the attention of golf and sports fans,” Rolapp said.

So what happens on the first week?

To put it simply, week one will work as the grouping stage. Eight groups of four pros (a total of 32 players) will enter the first week of the Tour Championship. From there it’s a battle of survival.

• Each will tee off against the other golfers in their group.
• Only top two golfers from each group will make it to the second week.
• To break ties, there will be a sudden-death playoff.

From there it gets even more interesting (and a little more confusing).

So how will the Tour Champion be determined?

The final week of the Tour Championship will crown the champion based on win-loss record and not season-long points. What does it mean?

• The 16 players in Week Two of the Tour Championship will be seeded.
• In the first three days, they will go head-to-head, and the two undefeated players will face each other on the final day.
• In addition, there will be seven other matches to determine the rest of the players’ standings.
• The undefeated player after the final day will be crowned the Tour Champion.

The only thing that is still under discussion is how players will be seeded for the 16-player final-week tournament. But Rolapp’s announcement contained another key detail that has excited the fans.

Which courses will host the Tour Championship?

The most exciting part is that the Tour Championship will rotate between venues. So the first week will be played on one course, and players will travel to a different course for the second week.

The PGA Tour has not revealed the details of the venue, but the Sports Business Journal reported that Los Angeles Country Club, Interlachen Country Club in Minnesota, and Sleepy Hollow Country Club in New York are likely to be the first few venues of the Tour Championship. East Lake will also be under consideration.

How does it fit into Brian Rolapp’s radical new vision for the PGA Tour?

The Tour Championship’s shakeup is one piece of the broader plan Rolapp first outlined in June. As reported previously, starting in 2028, the tour will split into two series: the Championship Series, with prize purses, and the Challenger Series, which functions as a developmental circuit.

Within these circuits, the players will face tough competition for promotion and relegation. The season itself shifts too. It will now run February through August, instead of opening in Hawaii each January. Rolapp was also cognizant of the fact that players are not happy with current FedExCup Playoffs format.

“I think one of the issues with the [current] Tour Championship was that I don’t think anyone really felt that it was culminating in crowning the best golfer in the world,” Rolapp was quoted as saying by ESPN. “I feel like calling it the playoffs was almost doing it a disservice because it was just a separate competition.”

Well, Rolapp would definitely get the plaudits from pros like Matt Fitzpatrick, who questioned the necessity of it. Or Rory McIlroy, who thought it was weird.

The Tour has said it will name the first host venues of the new Tour Championship in February 2027, with site visits already underway. For Woods, who has spent nearly three decades competing at East Lake and in match-play brackets alike, the new chapter of the event will be an exciting one to watch.