The PGA Tour’s front office is constantly making adjustments to its tournament schedule and the FedEx Cup Playoffs, but more serious changes tend to start with the most invested stakeholders of all: the players and the fans.

Last month, the PGA Tour unveiled plans to overhaul its ecosystem. Those include downsizing the tournament roster, reducing the number of tour tickets available and tightening membership pathways from the Korn Ferry Tour through Monday’s qualifiers.

As of 2026, only 100 players will retain fully exempt status via the FedEx Cup points list, down from 125 (the case since 1983), with those finishing in the 100-110 range receiving conditional status and the opportunity to earn around 15 Players in full court begin to play. Additionally, the number of Tour tickets awarded to Korn Ferry Tour graduates will shrink from 30 to 20, and field sizes for many events, including marquee tournaments like the Players Championship, will be reduced, leaving at least a dozen fewer players in the field are.

These sweeping changes, proposed by the PGA Tour’s Player Advisory Council, were approved by the Policy Board and ushered in a new era of professional golf. The influence of Tour councils is not just symbolic – they have proven to be an integral part of shaping the future of the sport.

“There was a consensus across the board about what we need to do to bring a better product and something better to our fans, our events and our sponsors. “Redefining what a tour pro is and streamlining it,” Tiger Woods said during a press conference in the Bahamas at the Hero World Challenge.

Today the PGA Tour announced the formation of a brand new advisory group. The Creator Council is made up of popular content producers such as Wesley and George Bryan, Roger Steele, Erik Anders Lang and Paige Spiranac, all of whom competed in the Creator Classic sponsored by Blackstone (the outdoor griddle brand) in August. Sixteen social media personalities played the back nine at East Lake Golf Club leading up to the Tour Championship in an event that was broadcast live on Golf Channel, ESPN+, Peacock and YouTube. Pro Shop Studios worked with PGA Tour Entertainment to handle the event on-site and broadcast production. The event’s YouTube views alone exceeded 2.5 million, with another 2.8 million views coming from participants’ individual YouTube channels.

The plan is to create a forum that brings together substantive voices to discuss how to reach the next generation of fans and make it easier for content creators to partner with the PGA Tour. Led by Andy Weitz, the PGA Tour’s chief marketing and communications officer, this Gen Z-focused think tank will meet monthly to strategize for future editions of the Creator Classic and also address broader topics such as fan engagement. Strategies, collaborative opportunities to address PGA Tour content and media policies, and event/broadcast improvements.

The Creator Council announcement is likely to draw some skepticism and even ridicule from the golf social media community, wondering what the tour is really trying to accomplish by convening this group of influencers. Still, the tour appears undeterred and is embracing potential criticism as part of its effort to evolve and better serve its audience.

“It all starts with the fans, and we are willing to take on some of that skepticism and bring in people who have a perspective that could make us better if it serves our fans,” Weitz said.

There is a direct connection between the PGA Tour Fan Forward initiative, a comprehensive research project that the Tour initiated last summer and is still ongoing, and the Creator Council’s efforts to engage with fans. The tour reached out to 15,000 core fans in June and July to learn about all aspects of the fandom, how they felt about the tour and what drives their behavior, with the goal of meeting them on their terms and their commitment to strengthen. Phase two expanded the focus and sample size as 30,000 more casual fans completed a survey. Phase three, launching before Thanksgiving, will test tactics around competition format changes, broadcast innovations, creating more compelling player content and expectations around the tournament experience, and on-site activations to improve the product. While the process is still early, the goal is to take this feedback into account and evolve accordingly.

“We are still at the very beginning of our fan forward initiative and processing what we are hearing, but it is clear to us that they have ideas about how the actual competition format itself can evolve and that we can learn a lot from that. “ “Other sports are also in demand in this area,” Weitz revealed, adding that core fans also have suggestions for improving the television experience that they want to explore together with their broadcast partners.