PALM BEACH GARDENS — With significant changes to the PGA Tour schedule expected as early as 2027, almost every tournament is under review.
Among those likely to be impacted: The Cognizant Classic in the Palm Beaches.
Cognizant, formerly known as the Honda Classic, starts on Thursday, Feb. 26, at PGA National. It has been in a spot on the calendar in recent years that led to the quality of the field suffering and a drop in fan interest.
One of three things could happen to the PGA Tour event that is celebrating its 20th year at PGA National and 24th since coming to Palm Beach County:
Joel Paige, managing director at PGA National when the then-Honda Classic moved there in 2007 after four years at The Country Club at Mirasol, believes Cognizant is in a vulnerable position.
“I think it’s just the economical cycle of the PGA Tour,” said Paige, who left PGA National in 2015 and now works for Escalante Golf.
“I think it’s run its course. I think it’s done its job. It brought all the attention to Palm Beach. I’d like to see it stay, but I’d be surprised at the end of the day with everything around golf that it ends up staying.”
Cognizant’s contract as title sponsor runs through 2030. The tour’s contract with PGA National runs through 2028.
Todd Fleming, executive director of the Cognizant Classic, said discussions already have begun with Henderson Park, the London-based private equity firm that purchased PGA National Resort & Spa one year ago.
The PGA Tour pays site fees to courses for tournaments it operates under its PGA Tour Events division. Those fees help offset the loss of revenue from the course being closed up to two weeks to host a tournament.
PGA National is an ideal site for a tournament considering the property has multiple courses where its members and resort guests can play during Cognizant, and it is in an area Jordan Spieth last year called the “professional men’s golf mecca.”
And hosting Cognizant provides immeasurable free advertising and exposure for PGA National during the four days it is televised by the Golf Channel and NBC.
“Any hotel would want to have a PGA Tour event on its property,” Paige said. “Especially one with multiple courses.”
PGA Tour season could start month later, week before Super Bowl
CEO Brian Rolapp joined the PGA Tour in June after 22 years as an executive in the National Football League. Rolapp believes the best interest for the tour is to avoid going head-to-head with the NFL playoffs, which could mean starting the season about a month later, during the off week before the Super Bowl.
“If you are going to compete with football in this country for media dollars and attention, it’s a really hard thing to do,” Rolapp said in an interview with CNBC’s CEO Forum. “The majority of golf is played in the summer and gets people’s attention, so looking at schedules to help optimize that calendar is certainly something we talk about.”
The tour’s season ends in late August, before the start of the NFL season.
Delaying the start of the season means some tournaments will be sacrificed. Others will be moved. Additionally, part of Rolapp’s plan is for the tour to make a push into major markets like Boston, Chicago and Philadelphia. That would mean more tournaments on the chopping block.
Tiger Woods, who lives in Jupiter Island, is chairman of the Future Competitions Committee that is assessing the PGA Tour schedule.
“It’s been quite a challenge,” Woods said prior to the Genesis Invitational that started Thursday, Feb. 19. “It’s trying to serve literally everyone, from the player side of it, from our media partners, from all of our title sponsors, from the local communities or even changing venues and going to bigger markets.
“It’s what do we need to do from a competitive model to make our tour the best product it can possibly be each and every year and still have room for development. How do we do all of that at the same time?”
That challenge for Cognizant has been daunting. During its heyday, which started in 2012 when 22-year-old Rory McIlroy outlasted a surging Woods for the victory that would vault him to No. 1 in the world for the first time, Cognizant attracted one of the strongest fields on the PGA Tour. Attendance peaked at about 200,000 to see world-class golfers such as Woods, McIlroy and Phil Mickelson.
In 2014, seven of the top 10 golfers in the world at the time of the tournament were in the field. In the last six years combined, three golfers ranked in the top 10 have played.
As a result, the tournament has lost much of its luster as attendance plummeted.
What changed?
For the better part of this decade, Cognizant has been in an unfavorable spot on the PGA Tour schedule. Many of those years, it has kicked off the Florida Swing — which includes the Arnold Palmer Invitational in Orlando, The Players Championship in Ponte Vedra Beach and the Valspar Championship in Palm Harbor.
But more problematic has been the years in which it immediately followed the West Coast Swing, which ends with high-profile events. More specifically, when it has been sandwiched between four high-end tournaments — three Signature Events and The Players — with purses of at least $20 million.
Signature Event fields include the top 50 golfers from the previous year’s FedEx Cup points list following the Tour Championship in August. Any of those who commit to play Cognizant would be playing five consecutive weeks.
Cognizant, whose purse is $9.6 million, is in the middle of four tournaments with purses of at least $20 million.
Adding to the frustration of the fans and community is many of those golfers sitting out Cognizant live within 10 miles of the course.
Of the top 30 golfers in the current Official World Golf Ranking, 12 live in Palm Beach County. Among those No. 26 Ryan Gerard is the only one in the Cognizant field this year. The field includes one golfer in the top 30 of this week’s rankings.
And TGL — the high-tech, indoor golf league co-founded by Woods and McIlroy — taking place five miles down the road at the SoFi Center has not helped. Of the 20 golfers participating in TGL matches this week, just four are playing Cognizant. TGL’s four matches the week of Cognizant will include 13 of the top 30 players in the world ranking, including six of the top 10. None of those are Cognizant field.
That field, though, is boosted by the presence of Jupiter’s Brooks Koepka, Billy Horschel, Jupiter’s Daniel Berger and Delray Beach’s Gary Woodland. All are fan favorites.
Koepka has won five major championships and returns to the PGA Tour this season after spending three years on the rival LIV tour. He last played at PGA National in 2022.
PGA Tour can save Cognizant by moving it to better schedule spot
With Rolapp believing in the “Less Is More” philosophy — remember, he comes from the NFL where each team plays 17 games and every week is a big deal — will Cognizant make the cut if the schedule is reduced?
The tournament proved in the past it can be one of the top events on tour and should be in the rotation.
But it also has shown none of that matters if it does not get help and continues to be stuck in an unfavorable spot on the schedule.
All of which means the future of Cognizant is the hands of the PGA Tour, which must move this tournament into a spot where more of the elite golfers, and especially those living locally, can fit it into their schedules.
No one knows if these changes are going to be significant or are going to be tweaks. And Woods said the new schedule may have to be rolled out “over a couple-year period.” Cognizant could land anywhere from February to April, or, less likely, as part of the less significant fall schedule.
And is it not known the impact of the PGA Tour returning to the Donald Trump-owned Doral resort outside Miami will have on Cognizant. Not only did the tour make a deal with the president — the man who called them “stupid” and said “something should happen” to their leadership when he was advocating for LIV Golf — it gave him a Signature Event.
The Cadillac Championship will be played April 30-May 3, a decade after Cadillac pulled out of the event at the same location as the title sponsor.
With the tour possibly cutting some tournaments, and PGA Tour Events also running Cadillac, is there room for two tournaments in South Florida separated by 85 miles? Or could Cognizant and Cadillac be looked at as a package to schedule in back-to-back weeks?
“I never thought Doral would lose a PGA Tour event,” Paige said. “These tournaments peak and wane. They have great runs.”
Tom D’Angelo is a senior sports columnist and reporter for The Palm Beach Post. He can be reached at tdangelo@pbpost.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: PGA Tour changes will have significant impact on Cognizant Classic
Reporting by Tom D’Angelo, Palm Beach Post / Palm Beach Post
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