Jay Monahan & the PGA Tour officials have been experimenting a lot with the league lately.
Facing tough competition from LIV Golf and the DP World Tour, the PGA Tour has taken drastic steps to ensure they are offering an exciting product to the fans. However, their judgment about the demands of the masses has often faltered as the community has constantly criticized every change they have introduced.
The new policy proposed for 2026 to improve the pace of play received much backlash. Fans are not pleased with the PGA Tour limiting the field size to improve the pace of play. Instead, they have suggested that slow players should be penalized for going over the clock. More recently, it seemed that Jay Monahan and his team had finally learned from the feedback. Reports suggest that they were considering using rangefinders to improve the pace of play were well received. But it seems that it didn’t take them to get back to their old ways and upset the community again.
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As Monday Q Info shared on its X account, the PGA Tour has changed a major aspect to provide better opportunities to amateur golfers. The tweet included an image with the text, “The WM Phoenix Qualifier will be held on Monday, February 3. This will be the FINAL for the WM Phoenix Open. The PGA Tour will be ending Open Qualifying starting in 2026”. This confirms that there won’t be any pre-tournament qualifiers for the PGA Tour from 2026.
Speaking about the tradition of the qualifiers, the post also said, “Open Qualifying has been a tradition for the Phoenix Open since 1948.” This means that the WM Phoenix Open Qualifiers will be discontinued after 77 years.
The drastic change in the tradition has further fueled the frustration of the fans. Let’s see what they had to say.
With another decades-old practice set to be discontinued in 2026, fans were bound to show their displeasure towards it. One of the fans stated their frustrations towards Jay Monahan & co. as they said “@PGATOUR Shame on the Tour!!!!!” They seem to suggest that the PGA Tour should be embarrassed to break the tradition. Another commented “Is this about “history” or “tradition?” Ask Jay when you see him.” They seem to question Jay Monahan’s intent behind taking such a drastic step.
A follower also stated, “It’s such a shame. What a shortsighted move by the PGAT.” They believe that the Tour will regret their decision in the future. The board replacing Jay Monahan & co. might face issues of not having a circulation of good players if they make this permanent. Another Tweet said, “So dumb. The ridiculous decisions continue. SMH”. They seem infuriated with the frequent bad changes implemented by the PGA Tour.
Then there was one user who shared, “The @pgatour is intent on self destruction as a spectator sport. Interest is already waning. @PGATOURComms”. Their frame of thought is quite accurate considering the major drop in viewership the Tour has experienced recently. If the wayward decision-making and bad play continue, the PGA Tour will lose its value in professional golf.
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