'Designated' PGA Tour Events Like the WM Phoenix Open Will Be Great, But There Is a Flip Side

This week's WM Phoenix Open will be a blast, but Bob Harig writes that the field at Pebble Beach showed how the Tour's new format can't be everything to everyone.

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The WM Phoenix Open didn’t need the help. It is already among the top weeks on the PGA Tour, a mixture of fun and mischief unseen anywhere else in golf. While to some it might go over the top, the excitement and attention it brings makes for a unique week in the game.

Who plays is not necessarily a big factor at the TPC Scottsdale, but this week’s tournament gets the added benefit of a stacked field as well.

Welcome to the first big week in the PGA Tour’s new "designated event" era.

A soft opening occurred last month at the Sentry Tournament of Champions, but this is the first full-field event under the new concept which will see nearly all of the top players in the world convene roughly 20 times this year as part of a new program to incentivize members to compete more often in the same big events.

As expected, the WM is seeing one of its best fields ever, with 22 of the top 25 in the Official World Golf Ranking and 37 of the top 50 committed to play. It’s an all-star tournament that will play out numerous times through the course of this season as purses have been increased significantly. This one is $20 million.

The Tour said that each of the top 10 players in the FedEx Cup standings as well as all 11 winners this season (prior to Pebble Beach) are also entered.

With football out of the way (the Super Bowl is Sunday night in Phoenix), plenty of green grass and warm weather to entice those still suffering in colder locales, and the top names all on board, it should make for the best watch so far this year.

Of course, there were bound to be unintended consequences with the new designated event structure. Or perhaps consequences that were known, and would need to be addressed going forward.

Pebble Beach took a big hit last week, and at least some of that can be attributed to the new system.

While it’s true that Pebble at times has suffered due to many factors, among them the possibility for poor weather (such as this year), playing three courses and the pro-am format, the event was even more bereft of star players.

Pebble Beach remains as scenic as ever, but the AT&T is not a must-play for the game's best :: Kyle Terada/USA TODAY Sports

Just one player in the top 10, Matt Fitzpatrick, was in the field, along with just seven of the top 50 and only 21 of the top 100. There were 81 players ranked outside of the top 300.

For years, there has been a lament that Pebble Beach, an iconic event that dates to the Tour’s beginnings, can’t draw better. Circumstances play a big role, with so many good tournaments making up the West Coast Swing and another busy stretch to come.

Throw in the designated events and it gets worse. Starting with the WM, seven of the next 10 week are designated. Three times, there will be back-to-back designated events—WM and Genesis, Arnold Palmer and the Players, Masters and RBC Heritage.

Sprinkled in there will be the Honda Classic, Valspar Championship and Valero Texas Open. Expect those fields to take a hit as well. Throwing Pebble Beach at the beginning of that stretch makes it all the more problematic and would have been an issue for whatever event occupied that spot on the calendar. It’s simply the fallout from an otherwise meaningful system.

Jordan Spieth, who played at Pebble Beach likely out of obligation to sponsor AT&T, wondered if it could be a designated event in the future. Spreading the four events around that are supposed to be floating—this year it’s WM, RBC Heritage, Wells Fargo and Travelers—would seemingly be the key to making this work in subsequent years.

“I would fight for an opportunity for this to be an elevated event in future years," Spieth said. "I'm not sure if the format would have to change or what would have to happen—but not just because, you know, I play this event, but I really think the opportunity to get the top 50, 60, 70 players in the world playing Pebble Beach and that being a PGA Tour event would be as successful as when the U.S. Open's held here.

“I think that trying to go to the world's best courses, when you have the opportunity, would be advantageous for the PGA Tour. So I will fight for it.’’

This issue is clearly top of mind for PGA Tour schedule-makers as they figure out the 2024 lineup and beyond. We might see a far different schedule next year, as some sponsors want to be part of the designated events and express a desire to move so as to open up the glut of these tournaments.

For now, might as well enjoy some major-level fields at tournaments not used to seeing them.