DP World Tour

The PGA Tour’s 2028 Overhaul: Two Tiers, Match Play and Pine Valley

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Promotion, relegation, no sponsor exemptions — and a Tour Championship that might finally be worth the name

The dust had barely settled on Wyndham Clark’s second U.S. Open title at Shinnecock Hills when the PGA Tour landed another story. On Tuesday at TPC River Highlands, CEO Brian Rolapp stepped to a podium and delivered the most significant structural overhaul in the Tour’s history. Starting in 2028, the Tour’s new model will include two separate series of tournaments running concurrently — the PGA Tour Championship Series and the PGA Tour Challenger Series. Golf, in other words, has finally borrowed football’s best idea.

PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp addresses media at TPC River Highlands during the 2026 Travelers Championship

Two Tracks, Running at Once

The Championship Series is the premium tier. It will feature up to 24 events, including 16 signature events, The Players Championship, four major championships, and season-ending events. Each signature event will be a 72-hole stroke-play tournament with average field sizes of 120 golfers and 36-hole cuts to the top 65 and ties, with a purse of at least $20 million. There will be no sponsor exemptions.(ESPN)

The Challenger Series sits beneath it as a genuine proving ground. It will consist of a minimum of 20 tournaments with purses of at least $4 million and 144-man fields, with around seven elevated events played during Championship Series off-weeks. Win twice on the Challenger track, and a player earns immediate promotion to the top flight.

PGA Tour graphic for the Championship Series and Challenger Series structure launching in 2028

Promotion, Relegation — and a Last Chance

At least the top 90 players in the Championship Series points list will retain their membership the following season, with another 20 promoted from the Challenger Series each year. Those who fall outside the top 90 are not cut loose immediately. Golfers facing potential relegation will be able to compete in a “last chance” series of four to six events in the autumn. Any golfer who fails to regain Championship Series status and doesn’t advance through those events will be eligible to compete in the Challenger Series the next season. It is promotion and relegation, applied to golf. The Premier League figured this out sixty years ago.

Tiger Woods chaired the Future Competition Committee that produced the recommendations, alongside Patrick Cantlay, Adam Scott and Camilo Villegas, among others. Rolapp described the outcome as a model grounded in meritocracy, with clearer pathways, higher stakes and more consistency when the best players compete together.(ESPN)

The Playoffs Finally Get Interesting

The Tour Championship — long the least compelling event in its own playoff — is overdue a reinvention. From 2028, it will leave East Lake and rotate to prestigious courses that the Tour has rarely or never played, including Pine Valley Golf Club in New Jersey, Cypress Point Club in California, and Seminole Golf Club in Florida. The postseason will also incorporate match play: a World Cup-style pool format with 32 players in groups of four vying for 16 final spots, then a small-field match play final at one of the world’s great courses — no ropes, no corporate buildout. Just golf at the places it was meant to be played. (The Fried Egg)

Tommy Fleetwood mid-swing

Where European Golf Fits In

The announcement carries real consequence on this side of the Atlantic. The future autumn schedule will feature a limited series of elevated international events with top players from the Championship Series, co-sanctioned by the DP World Tour. How many DP World Tour finishers earn direct Championship Series status is still being finalised — but the pathway matters, and the conversations are very much live.

Rory McIlroy, who had described the Challenger Series concept as a glorified version of the Korn Ferry Tour during his U.S. Open press conference, tempered his position once the full details landed, calling it a positive step for professional golf. High praise, by Rory’s standards.

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The courses that make European golf worth playing are not waiting for the PGA Tour to reorganise itself. They are available now — and in considerably better weather. Browse our Algarve golf courses →


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The Open de Portugal Returns to PGA Aroeira Lisboa

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After nearly thirty years away, one of European golf’s most storied tournaments comes home to the Wentworth of Lisbon

This September, the pine forests south of Lisbon will host professional golf again. The 64th Open de Portugal takes place at PGA Aroeira No.1 from 17 to 20 September 2026, marking the return of tournament golf to a course that has been part of the game’s fabric in Portugal for over half a century. The event is part of the HotelPlanner Tour and carries a prize fund of €300,000, with 156 players competing over four days. (HotelPlanner Tour)

Open de Portugal Returns to Aroeira

A Tournament Older Than the European Tour Itself

The Open de Portugal has been running since 1953 — nearly two decades before the European Tour existed. When the Tour launched its inaugural calendar in 1972, this was one of the events on it. That kind of longevity is rare in professional golf, and it places the tournament in company that very few events on the current schedule can claim. For the Portuguese Golf Federation, this is one of the centrepiece moments of the national golfing calendar.

The Course and Its Reputation

PGA Aroeira No.1 opened in 1972, the work of architect Frank Pennink, and was quickly given the nickname ‘the Wentworth of Lisbon’ by visiting players. The comparison was always a compliment with range — the course measures 6,122 metres over a traditional par 72 layout, winding through dense pine forest, and precision rather than power is the dominant theme, with tall trees doing the work that fairway bunkers do elsewhere. It is a course that rewards patience and punishes optimism.

Aroeira Fairway and Green

In 1996 and 1997, the course hosted the European Tour’s Portuguese Open — and the 2026 return closes a gap of nearly three decades. Portugal’s only PGA National, PGA Aroeira has recently emerged from a period of significant renovation, with new tees, reshaped bunkers, and cleared woodland between fairways opening up the layout and showing the course at its best. The resort was also named Europe’s Best Eco-Friendly Golf Facility 2025 at the World Golf Awards — recognition that the work done here goes beyond the scorecard.

What Brings 156 Professionals to Lisbon

The Open de Portugal is a Road to Mallorca event, awarding 2,000 points in the rankings that determine which players graduate to the DP World Tour at the season’s end. For many in the field, September at Aroeira will be one of the defining weeks of their year. The HotelPlanner Tour has been a reliable launching pad — recent winners at Royal Óbidos and other Portuguese venues have gone on to establish themselves at the highest level.

Aroeira Tee Lined Fairway

September at Aroeira

The conditions in mid-September around Lisbon are, frankly, excellent for golf. The resort sits within a protected pine forest on the Setúbal Peninsula, about 30 minutes from central Lisbon, with the Atlantic close enough to keep temperatures civilised. When the professionals leave, the course will be in tournament shape — and open for the rest of us.

PGA Aroeira No.1 is part of the Tee Times Lisbon Portfolio portfolio. If you would like to play the same course that hosts the 64th Open de Portugal, we can book your round.

Fourteen Shots: Yurav Premlall Rewrites the Record Books in Barcelona

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A week that began with a missed cut ended with one of the most dominant performances in DP World Tour history.

Golf has a habit of producing weeks that defy rational explanation. The 2026 Estrella Damm Catalunya Championship at Real Club de Golf El Prat produced one of them.

From Missed Cut to Record Books in Seven Days

Seven days before lifting the trophy in Barcelona, Yurav Premlall had missed the cut at the Turkish Airlines Open by nine shots. Seven days later, the 22-year-old South African had secured the largest winning margin in the history of non-major DP World Tour events — finishing on 28-under par, 14 shots clear of fellow South African Shaun Norris. (Outkick/Fox News)

Yurav Premlall Catalunya Championship 2026 18th Green

That margin was just one shot shy of Tiger Woods’ record at an official DP World Tour event, set at the 2000 US Open — and it surpassed what had previously been the widest margin in a non-major, Colin Montgomerie’s 11-shot victory at the 1989 Portugal Open. (Golf Monthly)

“I have no words. I have worked so hard to get into this position, and it’s so rewarding to finally see the results of it. The last eight or nine months have been such a struggle — and to end up in this position, I’m just so grateful, and it’s a dream come true.”

Yurav Premlall Catalunya Championship 2026 Trophy

Born in Durban in 2003, Premlall made history as a teenager by becoming the youngest amateur ever to qualify for the South African Open, at just 15 years and five months old. The ability was always there. Barcelona confirmed the composure has caught up. (Yardbarker)

A Course With History, and a Week With Meaning

Real Club de Golf El Prat had not hosted a DP World Tour event since the 2015 Open de España, and its return to the calendar carries significance beyond a single week’s play. The Estrella Damm Catalunya Championship kicks off the Road to the 2031 Ryder Cup, following the announcement that Camiral will host the biennial contest — making Spain the first continental European country to do so twice. (Official site)

Spain Real Club Golf El Prat

The week carried a personal dimension too. The opening round coincided with the anniversary of the death of Severiano Ballesteros, with players invited to wear navy blue and white — the colours in which Seve claimed some of his most iconic victories — and the starter acknowledging his anniversary before the first tee shot.

Portugal on the Leaderboard

Two Portuguese players made the cut at El Prat, with Ricardo Gouveia the pick of the pair. Having sat fourth at the halfway stage, he faded slightly over the weekend to finish tied 13th on ten under — a solid result and another encouraging week for a player building quietly consistent form on tour. Daniel Rodrigues closed tied 43rd on five under, a decent return after his breakthrough second place at the Turkish Airlines Open last month. Portuguese golf is in good health.

Why Spain Deserves a Place on Your Golf Calendar

Barcelona is already one of Europe’s great golf-break destinations: courses in fine condition, the climate largely reliable, and a city that makes a compelling case for extending any trip by a day or two. A flagship DP World Tour event — with the Ryder Cup on the horizon — only adds to the momentum.

Spain Golfing Magic

The amateur golfer watching Premlall’s historic final round will have done so with one thought already forming. Whether it’s a long weekend in Barcelona, a week along the Costa Brava, or a wider Spain golf break taking in multiple destinations, Tee Times Golf Holidays can put together the right package — tee times, hotels, and transfers all arranged.