“It stinks”: Lucas Glover says PGA Tour’s new format will force some difficult sacrifices
May 30, 2026; Fort Worth, Texas, USA; Lucas Glover plays his shot from the ninth tee during the third round of the Charles Schwab Challenge golf tournament. Mandatory Credit: Raymond Carlin III-Imagn Images
May 30, 2026; Fort Worth, Texas, USA; Lucas Glover plays his shot from the ninth tee during the third round of the Charles Schwab Challenge golf tournament. Mandatory Credit: Raymond Carlin III-Imagn Images
After completing his round at the top of the leaderboard with 8-under-par at TPC Deere Run, Lucas Glover said that the new PGA Tour format forces a divide between elite tournaments and lower-tier events.
Due to that, top players may be entirely blocked or financially disincentivized from supporting the middle-tier tournaments they traditionally love.
"I used this as an example. I said, I would choose to come here and play for less points and less money than a track 1 event with more money and more points because, chances are, I'm going to do better here than there. I'm trying to win; I don't care about the money," Glover said at his post-round interview as per ASAP Sports. "It stinks, but it kind of made sense."
To Glover, it is unfortunate because it creates a clear divide between tournaments and players.
The Tour’s new plan splits everything into two tiers. The Championship Series will feature top 120-player fields and purses of at least $20 million. The Challenger Series will feature 144-player fields and minimum $4 million purses.
Lucas Glover, Atlanta Drive GC, practiced during a media tour of the SoFi Center as preparations near completion for the start of the second season of TGL in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla, on December 15, 2025.
Lucas Glover, Atlanta Drive GC, practiced during a media tour of the SoFi Center as preparations near completion for the start of the second season of TGL in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla, on December 15, 2025.
The John Deere Classic could face a significant shift in field quality if it is designated as a Challenger Series event under the PGA Tour's upcoming 2028 schedule overhaul.
Glover’s insights reveal one major point here. Players who qualify for the Championship Series won't have the freedom to play down into a Challenger event, even if they're a past champion of that tournament or have deep personal ties to it. Glover used himself as the example.
The 2009 U.S. Open champion is also a John Deere Classic winner. Another reason he preferred the tournament was that it gave him chances early in his career. But in the upcoming model, he might not be allowed to come back and defend that loyalty.
And it's not just him. Plenty of players have the same kind of hometown pull toward specific stops that could get classified as second-tier.
"So many guys live in West Palm area," Glover said in the same interview. "So many guys live in Scottsdale, many guys live in Dallas. That was a tough one."
Amidst Glover's take, Jordan Spieth sees the proposal differently.
Jordan Spieth says the upcoming model is just a 'cleaner version of today’s Tour'
Spieth said the new system is not really new. It just cleans up what the Tour already does.
“I think that we kind of are in [a relegation system] to an extent right now anyway,” Spieth explained during his pre-tournament presser at the John Deere Classic on July 1. “I think there’s always been that. It’s just where is the number and how clean can you make it for essentially everybody to understand. We had a 125. Now we have different ones. We have 100, we have 70, we have 50. They all mean something different.”
He pointed to the cut lines that already exist. The top 100 keep full status. The top 70 after the FedEx St. Jude Championship keep advancing in the playoffs. And the top 50 after the BMW Championship lock up spots in every Signature Event.
For him, the numbers just shifted in the new model.
What are your thoughts on the divide? Let us know in the comments.
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Written by
Md Saife Fida
Edited by
Soheli Tarafdar