Opinion & Analysis

Is a “Single-A PGA Tour” needed in the United States?

Published

7 years ago

Mar 2, 2019

The road to the PGA Tour is not an easy one to take. Thousands try, only a handful get in, even fewer of the handful stay. However, with the thousands of professional golfers that don’t get in, they need a place to play.

The Web.com Tour has the been the direct feeder and developmental tour for the PGA Tour since 2013. Since its inception in 1990 under the “Ben Hogan Tour” name, there has been multiple variations that slowly evolved into the highly coveted developmental tour we know today. Top 25 finishers in a year long money race get their PGA Tour cards for next season, and 25 more in the playoffs also receive their cards. However, some pros don’t ever make it this far, and there are some that don’t stay long either.

Enter in the third-tier tours of the PGA Tour, that would be PGA Tour Canada, PGA Tour Latin America, and PGA Tour China. Now, each of these three tours operate very similar to the Web.com and the PGA Tour. The same is true with the Web.com, finish high in the money list for the year, move up to the Web.com the next season. With varying statuses, Q-Schools, tournament cuts, and unreal talent across all levels, this system has proven itself to be the best in who can make it on the PGA Tour. However, if you look at the third-tier tours, you come to realize there is no direct route to them besides Q-School and the occasional Monday qualifier. Which comes to to bear the question, is a fourth tier “PGA Tour” needed?

An easy way to look at this is to look at the baseball farming system. Obviously you have the major leagues, but the minor leagues in regards to the major leagues makes the transition to move up as a pro really obvious. From Rookie Ball, to Single-A, Double-A, and finally to Triple-A, the idea of moving up the farm system to get better as a professional to eventually make it to the major leagues is common sense. However, not everyone moves up, some people stay stagnant, and unfortunately some people move down, not everyone can get what they want.

If baseball can have a farm system, why can’t golf? If you want to get technical, we do have one with the various mini tours around the United States that are smaller than the PGA Tour affiliates, but in the grand scheme of things, they just build up your competition skills with no direct way of moving up, and it also doesn’t help the prize money is not high either, but that’s expected at the developmental level.

What if there was a “Single-A” PGA Tour? What if it could feed into PGA Tour China, PGA Tour Canada, and PGA Latin America? Who would play in it? A lot of what ifs and guesses, but here would be my guess on the scenario.

For the PGA Tour to do this, it would need interest in a fourth level to begin with. Who would that level be? I could see scratch golfers, high level amateurs, or even PGA and other club professionals that didn’t quite have the playing resume to play on the higher tours to play in them. They would develop their skills and see how far it would go.

What do you think? Is another tour needed? Is it necessary for the PGA Tour to have a “farm system”? I’m curious to see your thoughts, GolfWRXers.

Related Topics:

Up Next

What junior golfers really think about the college recruiting process

Don't Miss

Hidden Gem of the Day: Sharp Park in Pacifica, California

Chris Mari

17 Comments

Tiger Noods

Mar 4, 2019 at 5:53 pm

This makes no sense on its surface. “Single-A” is a development team, subsidised to some degree, and is not out to sell a lot of tickets generally.

Any sort of fourth tier wouldn’t be profitable. It already sounds like the regional systems generally in place, and is a tester for getting into the third-tier tours outside the US. If you set aside the NCAA, you are essentially looking at some sort of pseudo-amateur thing, and I think that there’s no need to further organise beyond the regionals that already exist.

The only interesting thing for me would be the “Team Golf” concept, where cities get “franchises”, and you have some interesting content that way.

Reply Report comment
Morgan

Mar 4, 2019 at 9:45 am

The Great Lakes Tour has some in-roads to the PGA Tour Canada and to final qualifying (I think) for the RBC Canadian Open. There are ways to gain some exemptions from other mini-tours to the web.com tour as well.

The fact that the PGA-TourC, and PGALTA, and PGA China are running at basically full steam now, has provided the A or AA level. There’s not need for a level below that affiliated with the PGA Tour. There’s no advertising money in that. Without Advertising money, there is no purse. Without a purse there are no pros. We see this with local state and provincial tournaments. There are some pros trying to hack it as playing pros and some pros there for the occasional tournament. The view of those pros is that their entry fee is just padding the pockets of the pros that play more often.

Once you get below the PGA Tour Canada, you’re looking at club professionals.

Sorry if this is pessimistic, but I’m a realist and below those three tours are guys that are NEVER going to make the PGA Tour.

Reply Report comment
Joel Thelen

Mar 4, 2019 at 8:21 am

I just got home yesterday from PGA Tour China Q school where I finished 22nd and got some status, I also played PGA Tour Canada in 2015-2016, and I Monday’d into 3 Web.com Tour events in 2018 with a best finish of 14 under par, 34th place in Springfield, MO. So I have definitely thought about this idea! One barrier is that one country can’t have more than 3 tours with world ranking points (PGA, Champions, Web). But what you see if you look at tier 3 is how many Americans are traveling outside the country to try and get on the American owned PGA Tour and playing for very little money. Look at the Aruba Cup (Ryder cup between PGA Tour Canada & Latin America), it’s guys from Texas, California, Florida, Etc. leading both Tours.

The challenge is that there are only so many spots in the fields. PGA Tour fields are mostly 144 players, and 125 guys each year make the playoffs. So there aren’t many PGA Tour players losing their status every year. The PGA Tour has arranged the system to reduce turnover, and bring in more international fields. Which I understand helps with marketing for sure. As long as the formula is how it is, what would guys in tier 4 play for? A couple spots on tier 3 tours?

I’m a fan of capitalism, not socialism. But I would love to see the money being paid out more equivalent to the level of play. The PGA Tour purses these days are astounding how big they are, and not one person on the planet believes PGA Tour players are 10x better than Web.com, but they play for 10x the money. Just doing simple math, each tier plays about 40 tournaments per season (a little less on the Web.com). But if all 3 play one week there is ($7,000,000+$700,000+$220,000=$7,920,000 being paid out). I think the money should be closer to

Tier 1: $5,000,000
Tier 2: $2,000,000
Tier 3: $790,000

While giving PGA Tour players a 30% pay cut, you almost triple Web.com earnings, and over triple Tier 3 earnings. Clearly guys will still want to be on the PGA Tour! But at least the other guys can pay their caddies and start a family. This will only make more kids want to play pro golf and in my opinion, be better for growing the game.

Reply Report comment
Pro

Mar 3, 2019 at 10:44 pm

What needs to change, Chris, is an entire paradigm shift in America’s educational and cultural attitudes towards teenagers.
Why can’t teenagers just turn Pro in anything they’re good at doing, if that’s what they want? Why do you take the choice away from them? It teaches them personal responsibility to own their choice that they make, if they want to become a Pro as a teenager in high school. Why is there such a stigma with that in the US? Why do people have to go to college before their life gets started?
If they want to be a Pro before college, let them!

Reply Report comment
JP

Mar 3, 2019 at 11:51 am

If you aren’t going to make it, you aren’t going to make it. There is no need to give golfers of every skill level a tour. What’s next? Grandfathers mini tour for those 65+ year olds that think they should make it on tour, but now lack the physical ability to compete at the PGA tour level?
.
Is it at the point we need to award everybody participation trophies for trying?

Reply Report comment
- The dude
  
  Mar 3, 2019 at 6:29 pm
  
  Hahha….good post
  
  Reply Report comment
- D
  
  Mar 3, 2019 at 10:40 pm
  
  Well you Americans do that already.
  
  Reply Report comment
John

Mar 3, 2019 at 10:25 am

No this feels like heading the participation trophy route. Get through q school, Monday qualify, or leave your family and friends and earn it in Canada or the Latin American tour.

Reply Report comment
The dude

Mar 3, 2019 at 3:48 am

This article is cringeworthy….

Reply Report comment
A. Commoner

Mar 2, 2019 at 10:06 pm

How can one write an article like this while ignoring the incredible expansion of intercollegiate athletics over past several decades? These programs might be thought of as a filtering (farm) system whereby those deserving to advance do so. Like it or not, there is a ‘sorting out’ process in operation throughout life in all aspects of life. Many are called; few are chosen. Accept it and live with it.

Reply Report comment
Phil D. Snuts

Mar 2, 2019 at 9:54 pm

Why does it need anything? The cream rises to the top regardless of how many minor leagues a particular sport has.

Reply Report comment
Hawkeye77

Mar 2, 2019 at 9:00 pm

Ask the question but provide absolutely no analysis of how it could even work, and of course it would not. PGA Tour already invested and subsidizing what it thinks is necessary, pretty smart outfit – who does this “4th Tier”? When do they play? Where? WHY?

Do we need more pro golfers? You aren’t good enough to make it on Tour or make a living as it stands playing golf, why subsidize a lower level of golf? Who isn’t making it that “should”?

Golf has a “farm system” it’s called mini-Tours and other Tours and there are plenty of opportunities if you are truly talented. If not, no reason to guarantee some standard of living to people that should probably be doing something else. You’ll just have more people chasing that “scrape by” dream at yet another level lower.

Reply Report comment
ChipNRun

Mar 2, 2019 at 2:23 pm

Chris,

You have an interesting idea but don’t link it to a business model. Some considerations…

* Where will you get the sponsorships for the tournaments? Can the PGA Tour find enough slack marketing desire among corporations to pay for the tournaments? Consider the MacKenzie Tour (PGA Tour Canada). MacKenzie evidently has 12 events last year. The 2018 top player was Tyler McCumber – 11 events, $139,000 total with three wins. Only one other player crossed the $100,000 mark. So how much of a purse can you guarantee for your Single A tour? And, what does a Single A win count toward a PGA Tour slot?

* What about regional PGA events? Can up-and-coming non-traditional tour pro hopefuls play in these and score some points toward entering the current mini-tours?

* You lament the demise of the Q-School, but it’s still here. It just moved down a notch to the mini-gours. PGA Tour Canada has a Q-School tourney, and PGA Tour Latino American has a qualifying tournament.

* You imply but do not state that lots of people could make the pro tour if the only got “another chance.” Happy Gilmore and Augie Baccus (The Squeeze) are entertaining movie characters, but in real life their chances of breaking through to the PGA Tour are very slim. If they can’t advance through the mini-tours to Web.com, I doubt that a Single A tour would increase their chances that much.

* Your Single A Tour would be the equivalent of Fantasy Football… except the players to out to a real golf course rather than fuming over the computer screen.

Reply Report comment
- Chris Mari
  
  Mar 2, 2019 at 9:11 pm
  
  Hi ChipNRun,
  
  So the original idea for the article is a hypothetical, would I want to see a Single-A PGA Tour in the United States. Yes. Would I want to run it myself with the ideas mentioned in the blog, not really. It’s more of a question to the Golfwrx community of could you see it working or not, and you are asking the right questions above, in which I do appreciate the deep thought in this, thanks for reading!
  
  Reply Report comment
Q

Mar 2, 2019 at 10:08 am

Terrible comparison to baseball.
Teams don’t get relegated nor promoted in baseball like the players do in golf, like soccer teams do in Europe or around the world. That’s the problem with Major sports in the US, so this argument is backwards.
The Major sports in US needs to change its system where the leagues have promotion and relegation.
The golf system is fine. Except for the bit where they removed the Q-school. By elimination Q-school direct entry into the top flight, the PGA made it almost like the other major sports in America, into the Elitist system that it wanted it to be.
At least golf has its promotion-relegation system. And it has to.

Reply Report comment
- Chris Mari
  
  Mar 2, 2019 at 9:13 pm
  
  Q,
  
  I like this point you mentioned above, personally I think the system is fine as well, but I am curious to see would you want to actually see it work or would it just be a complete failure due to your said points? Thanks for reading!
  
  Reply Report comment
Peter

Mar 2, 2019 at 9:39 am

The difference between golf and baseball is that the scouts in the big leagues are evaluating different positions and wide array of specialized talent. It doesn’t work like that in golf. It’s all about your score. When it comes to prize money, Web.com players can barely scrape by a living, let alone people on the smaller tours. Bottom line is that if the PGA thinks they can make money from sponsors and media by putting this together, they’d do it.

Reply Report comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Opinion & Analysis

5 Things We Learned: Thursday at the PGA Championship

Published

2 weeks ago

May 15, 2026

Ronald Montesano

Aronimink is not a storied club, but when Donald Ross himself proclaimed it to be as good as he can design and build, one had to take notice. Jay Sigel was the pre-eminent male amateur golfer from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s. He might have called any number of Philadelphia clubs home, but he chose Aronimink. It served him well. Gary Player won a PGA Championship here in 1962, and was followed by the 1993 winner … nobody. Aronimink gave that event away to Inverness, for reasons of which it is certainly not proud. So be it. We had to wait sixty-four years for the PGA to return to Newtown Square, but here we are. Aronimink has been neo-restored by Gil Hanse and team, to return Ross features with an eye toward defense against the dark arts, errrr, high-tech equipment.

Day one saw Rory McIlroy and Bryson DeChambeau dig big holes, to the tune of plus-four and plus-six, respectively. Since the first-round lead will be minus-three at worst, many shots will need to be made up for the power couple to reach contention. By nightfall, seven golfers held the day-one lead at three-under par 67. Shots and sticks caught our attention, and we are proud to present Five Things We Learned on Tech Thursday at the 2026 PGA Championship. Thanks to InsideTourGolfer, Today’s Golfer, and GolfWRX for initial equipment research.

First, meet Min Woo Lee

Min Woo Lee, aka Dr. Chipinski, has once again thrust himself into the conversation of Can he, will he, when will he? Lee has so much talent, wins not nearly as often as we believe that he should, and has no major near-misses (much less titles) on his wiki. The young Aussie is getting older and wiser, but is he able to avoid the scarring that holds the older and wiser back from breaking through? Philadelphia offers another opportunity. Min Woo signed for five birdies and two bogeys on day one, and grabbed a share of the opening-day lead at Aronimink. Winners transcend history and the moment, and Lee will need that sort of ascent to lift the Wannamaker on Sunday.

Second, meet Aldrich Potgeiter

The young South African golfer can rip driver with the best of them. Aronimink tips out at nearly 7400 yards, but beyond the fairway bunkers that ensnare only the mortals, Potgeiter can take his chances with wedge from the rough. On Thursday, he spent plenty of time in the spinach. Like Popeye, he used his muscles to gouge and thrash and dig his way out. Six birdies against three bogeys on the card brought AP in a three deep.

Third, meet Martin Kaymer

Not a major event takes place without a where’s he been throwback moment. We know that Martin Kaymer left the PGA and DP World tours for LIV golf, but the two-time (US Open and PGA) major winner has a lifetime exemption into at least one major event, and he seizes the opportunity each May. Kaymer joined the six-seven brigade with four birdies and a solitary bogey on day one. Kaymer was never a long hitter, and the years are kind to no golfer. The German champion will need to uncork every bottle of guile and strategy in his cabinet to remain in contention. For today, though, he occupies a rung on the ladder of Tour Tech.

Fourth, meet Scottie Scheffler

Let’s see, he’s the defending champion at the PGA, and he found his way back to the top tier with five birdies against two bogeys. To be a favorite and then play up to that stature and expectation is quite difficult. Just ask Rory, Bryson, and some of the other pre-tournament heartthrobs. Scheffler’s game is complete, and to knock him off the OWGR #1 pedestal, one needs to defeat him at the majors. Aronimink is the sort of course that fits Scheffler’s game. Better yet, it unfits the game of many of his challengers. Don’t expect Scheffler to go away anytime soon. Come Sunday, he’ll be around.

Fifth, meet Stephan Jaeger

Clocking in for the unheralded players shift are Ryo Hisatsune and Stephan Jaeger. Hisatsune logged seven birdies on day one, but gave most of them back with four bogeys. Still, he’s tied at the top for a time. Jaeger pitched five birdies against two bogeys, including a run of three consecutive, from holes four through six. Odds are that one of the two will hang around through 36 holes. Odds also suggest that both will be gone by Saturday evening. Still, the PGA Championship has historically been the major most likely to be won by an under-known. Both Hisatsune and Jaeger feature on that list, so good luck, lads!

Club Junkie

Club Junkie’s Titleist GTS driver fitting results!

Published

2 weeks ago

May 14, 2026

Brian Knudson

On this episode of the Club Junkie Podcast, I head to the Titleist Performance Institute for a full driver fitting with the new Titleist GTS lineup. We dive into the fitting process, talk about what made the biggest difference in performance, and break down how the different GTS heads and shaft combinations compare on the launch monitor. If you are thinking about a new driver setup for this season, there is a lot to take away from this one.

I also get into Brooks Koepka and the gear setup he brought to the PGA Championship, including the putters that caught my eye during the week. There are some interesting equipment trends showing up at the highest level right now and we break down what stands out.

To wrap things up, I talk about reshafting a few wedges, what I learned during the process, and swapping an adaptor onto a new shaft for another build project in the shop. A gear packed episode from start to finish for anyone who loves golf equipment and club building.

Follow Club Junkie everywhere:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/clubjunkiepod/
X: https://x.com/ClubJunkiePod
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@clubjunkiepod
Threads: https://www.threads.com/@clubjunkiepod

Club Junkie

Club Junkie WITB, week 16: New Titleist GTS woods!

Published

2 weeks ago

May 14, 2026

Brian Knudson

Excited for this week’s WITB as we get to add the new Titleist GTS woods to the bag! I was fit at Titleist’s TPI facility in Oceanside California a few weeks ago and my new clubs just showed up. I am also adding a cool set of irons that I built last year some wild custom wedges into a new golf bag. Speaking of the bag I have a new Ghost Anyday Black Ops stand bag that I will be using on my Motocaddy Remote M7 electric cart.

Driver: Titleist GTS3 (11 degrees @ 10.25)
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus Red 6s

3-wood: Titleist GT1 3Tour (14.5 degrees)
Shaft: Graphite Design Tour AD CQ-7s

5-wood: Titleist GTS (18 degrees)
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus Red 7s

9-wood: Titleist GT1 (24 degress)
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus Red 7s

Irons: Bettinardi CB24 (5-PW)
Shafts: KBS C-Taper Lite 110 stiff

Wedge: TaylorMade MG5 (50-09 SB)
Shaft: Mitsubishi MMT 125 Stiff

Wedge: TaylorMade MG5 (56-12 SB)
Shaft: Mitsubishi MMT 125 Stiff

Wedge: TaylorMade MG5 (60-08 LB)
Shaft: Mitsubishi MMT 125 Stiff

Putter: Dan Carraher ZT Proto

Ball: Callaway Chrome Tour

Bag: Ghost Anyday Black Ops Stand Bag