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, talking to reporters Wednesday on the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Membership, introduced he has shaped a nine-person future competitors committee that shall be led by 15-time main champion Tiger Woods.
“The purpose will not be incremental change,” Rolapp stated. “The purpose is important change.”
Woods added Wednesday in a social media put up that the committee “is about shaping the subsequent period of the PGA Tour.”
Honored to function Chairman of the Future Competitors Committee. That is about shaping the subsequent period of the PGA TOUR – for our followers, gamers and companions.
Because of @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 earth for the advantage of PGA Tour followers, gamers and their companions. It’s aimed toward a holistic relook of how we compete on the tour.”
The committee shall be guided by governing ideas of parity, shortage and ease and shall be given a “clear sheet” to “guarantee potential adjustments honor the traditions of the sport with out being overly sure by them,” in accordance with the PGA Tour.
The committee’s objectives embrace strengthening the tour’s dedication to a meritocratic construction, rising fan engagement by bringing high golfers collectively extra usually and higher connecting the common season to the postseason.
“The sports activities enterprise will not be that sophisticated,” stated Rolapp, a former NFL government. “You get the product proper, you get the fitting companions, your followers will reward you with their time as a result of they’re telling you it is good and so they need extra of it, after which the business and the enterprise half will maintain itself.
“Then you definitely simply must continuously 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 sure by it. I feel that degree of innovation is what we’ll do right here, and I feel that is one lesson I’ve discovered.”
The committee may also embrace 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 normal supervisor of the Boston Purple Sox and Chicago Cubs.
Rolapp stated he appointed Epstein to the committee as a result of he has a “observe document in different sports activities, together with baseball, and has wrestled with these identical aggressive points, and I feel we are able to be taught from his expertise.”
Epstein, a particular advisor to MLB, was instrumental in introducing the pitch clock and different rule adjustments reminiscent of restricted pickoff makes an attempt and defensive shifts and larger bases to hurry up play in baseball.
“I’ll actually convey expertise from my work on the Nationwide Soccer League in comparable issues,” Rolapp stated. “I feel exterior perspective is all the time an excellent factor so long as it is utilized in the fitting approach.”
Rolapp stated 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 accordance with 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 Could.
“I feel everybody is happy about returning to a course [where] we have now many years of expertise,” Rolapp stated. “I feel the gamers are excited. I feel we’re trying 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 needed 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 advised ESPN final week that Al-Rumayyan has advised 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 stated. “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 longer term.”
When Rolapp was requested whether or not reunification and reaching a take care of PIF was a excessive precedence, he stated, “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 will pursue aggressively. That is how I view it.”
“I might supply to you that the most effective assortment of golfers on the earth are on the PGA Tour,” Rolapp stated. “I feel there is a bunch of metrics that exhibit that, from rankings to viewership to no matter you need to decide. I will 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 stated he spent about 90 minutes speaking to Rolapp for the primary time final week.
“I like him. I like him loads,” McIlroy stated. “I like that he would not come from golf. I like that he would not have any preconceived concepts of what golf ought to seem like or what the tour ought to seem like. I feel he’ll convey a contemporary perspective to all the things, and I feel he desires to maneuver fairly fast, so I am excited.”
