The 2028 PGA Tour tournaments will be split into the Championship division and the Challenger division. There are currently no signature events played in the state of Texas. Texas is the fastest growing state and the second largest in population. We have the fourth largest media market in DFW and the fifth largest in Houston. Will we have any tournaments in the Championship division in the state of Texas? If we do, which ones will make the cut? It seems crazy, but we may be shut out of any tournaments in the championship level. Any thoughts on which PGA tournaments in Texas will make the championship level or the Challenger level? It seems that the Challenger level is nothing but a glorified Korn Ferry event. $30 million will get you on the Championship level and $4 to $8 million. Will get you onto the Challenger level.

I think they'd have to stand up a new tournament. All the Texas stops are kinda trash.

I bet one of the DFW stops makes it. It all depends on sponsorship commitments.

Rumor was the CJ Cup event was going to be one.

Colonial will be dropped completely after this next year

This is a guess...they prob will keep the Byron cause of the name and move it to PGA West in Frisco

The players and mainly player's wives loved it at the four seasons....its been a **** show ever since

The McKinney tournament (CJ Cup) will never be moved to PGA Frisco. That is the headquarters of the PGA of America. Since the PGA of America and the PGA Tour are two separate entities that do not get along, the PGA Tour would never schedule a tournament at the site of the headquarters of the PGA of America. Few of the PGA Tour players enjoy the McKinney course where -31 and -30 were the winning scores the past two years. If you take away, the three Dallas players who played this year, it had one of the worst player fields this year. The PGA Tour says that they are looking for iconic courses and the McKinney course is definitely not it. I think Colonial has the best chance of the Texas stops as it is the longest running PGA tournament at the same site. Next year will be the 81st year of the Colonial tournament.

Sure they say they want iconic courses in big markets but when a sponsor puts up $30M they'll take what they can get; case in point the Wyndham will be a Championship Event in 2028 and its in a tiny market on a course not many big time guys play every year.

I got a text a few weeks ago that said Colonial is pretty much done after this year.

Texas golf kinda sucks and not much to choose from in DFW is why I chose PGA West. I personally don't like the course much. Maybe they just don't have a tournament named after Byron Nelson....

CB/AG - tough crowd.

The SHO before the Masters was always a good event, once Shell pulled out the Valero in SA got that spot. The fields were always good, the foreign players in the field, players tuning up for the Masters and several trying trying to qualify for the Masters. Players you would not see at otherwise. You folks are showing a Dallas bias...

Houston and San Antonio had been relegated to the Fall Series before in the past 20 years. So it doesn't take much to assume that those two tournaments will likely be on the chopping block with the new format

Colonial and The Nelson got screwed by the calendar, first with The Players, then the PGA Championship and now The Memorial.

Fortunately, for Texas, there aren't a whole lot of choices for the PGAT to choose from during March/April leading up to The Masters.

I think Texas likely gets two tournaments in the Championship series, and two in the Challenger.

It's not Dallas bias. It's 2026 reality. All of the Texas events suck. The SHO pre-Masters "glory days" was a very short run and doesn't mean it doesn't suck now. The Byron Nelson was one of the best non-major stops on tour for decades when he was alive - largest purse, great field, most money raised for charity. Look at the list of winners - Tiger (won it a month after winning his first Masters), Phil, Els, Couples, Stewart, Watson multiple times, Crenshaw, Nicklaus multiple times. Best event Texas has had by far over a sustained time, thanks largely to Byron Nelson supporting it, hand writing invitations, etc., along with the Salesmanship Club running a great tournament. But times and circumstances change. Byron died, then the calendar changed, then the course changed. They are all crap now.

Texas weather is pretty rough for most of the golf season, including for the current slots for the Byron and the Colonial. Likely going to be super hot and humid, decent chances of rain and thunderstorms. Considering where they are relative to other tournaments on the calendar, just doesn't seem like it makes much sense. Doesn't feel like either tournament has any positive momentum (and sounds like Colonial is over it anyway).

The McKinney tournament already feels like a KFT event aside from a couple of Dallas guys showing up out of obligation.

I think if Colonial wanted to host it could be turned into a much better Masters tune up than TPC San Antonio.

I'm not sure where all the hate is from about the Dallas Fort Worth courses. Unfortunately, with the passing of the great Byron Nelson, that tournament will never be the same as it's glory days when he was alive. The tournament has been at 13 different venues during history, including the failed 2018 - 2019 experiment at Trinity Forest golf course. It has been at TPC Craig Ranch for the past five years and the players simply don't like courses where you have to shoot -30 or better to win the tournament. As far as Colonial, they spent over $25 million using the Premier golf architect Gil Hanse to restore the course to its condition what it held the U.S. Open in 1941. That restoration project was completed three years ago. Colonial is the only course in the country that is held the U.S. Open, women's, U.S. Open, and the Tournament Players Championship(1975). Winners include Ben Hogan, Sam Snead, Arnold Palmer, Lee Trevino, Jack Nicklaus,Phil Mickelson, Adam Scott, Justin Rose, and Jordan Spieth. With Charles Schwab as the sponsor, I think Colonial has the best bet to make the championship level.

Colonial is a legit course for sure.

Is it the membership that doesn't want to host? I know they had some trouble finding a sponsor in the recent past… is the organization putting it on just not up for it?

Im hearing they won't have 2 events in DFW

Colonial gets dropped

Keep Byron....might go back to TPC

CJ is one of if not best sponsor PGAT has

Next year's tournament is the 81st at Colonial. The membership is fully behind keeping the PGA Tour at Colonial. Charles Schwab is also willing to sponsor at the Championship division , which means a $30 million sponsorship.

The hate is for all of the Texas events, not all of the courses and not DFW. The DFW events historically have had the most success, but that has long since passed. Colonial is a classic course, but being realistic, a lot of these players who grew up bombers don't seem to care for its old school shotmaker layout. Tiger didn't in his day so he was one-and-done, and he doesn't seem to be alone. So between that and the calendar, it's been on the struggle bus with the Nelson for a couple of decades. Houston had a brief run of relevance but it's been weak for most of its history. And San Antonio has always been an afterthought.

Memorial Park is a great layout after the redo by Doak and March would be the time to play in Texas if you were going to. Oh well

All the members I know are not "fully" behind it. They like it for the party. But hate the fact they can't player course and have to buy a ticket and are basically banned from their own clubhouse for a week.

Yes, members don't play the week of the tournament which is normal for any PGA event. The last day of play is the Saturday before tournament week. All Colonial members receive free tickets for the week of the tournament.

98Ag99Grad said:

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Memorial Park is a great layout after the redo by Doak and March would be the time to play in Texas if you were going to. Oh well

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Yah, much of the conversation on here is dominated by North Texas guys. I'm not convinced the conversation on here matches reality. Based on the field we had this year and the feedback from players, it doesn't match the Texags golf consensus. Jim Crane has been positioning and lobbying for an elevated event for a while.

We need the Dallas guys to argue over whether the tournament is "The Byron" or "The Nelson"

Texas definitely deserves two events in the Championship level. With the 4th(DFW) and 5th(Houston) largest media markets in the country, we definitely should have two tournaments. My concern it that they are running out of dates on the 2028 schedule as many of the Championship level tournaments have already been announced.

20 of the top 50 is nothing to write home about. Very similar to Colonial.

One of the big issues is none of the better clubs in Dallas or Houston currently host an event and will be virtually impossible to talk to them into doing it at this point. So you're left with second tier courses as an option. Add in the weather and Texas becomes a tough spot on the tour schedule.

Would be really great if they would simply "rebrand" 1 tournament per year for the Championship Series as the Texas Open and rotate venues between DFW/Houston/San Antone

JCA1 said:

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One of the big issues is none of the better clubs in Dallas or Houston currently host an event and will be virtually impossible to talk to them into doing it at this point. So you're left with second tier courses as an option. Add in the weather and Texas becomes a tough spot on the tour schedule.

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There's also the reality that many of the nicer clubs are amazing places, but horible for fan access and walkabililty. That played a part in moving the Chevron from Carlton Woods to Memorial Park.

The other reality is both the host committees and PGAT have realized it isn't ideal to host a tournament in a large city if the actual course isn't in the city within 20 minutes of the city's population base and commercial centers (and of course sponsers and their customer base).

Enrico Pallazzo said:

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20 of the top 50 is nothing to write home about. Very similar to Colonial.

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Both were top 25 fields for 2026, Houston was a little stronger removing all the subjective crap and only looking at field distribution (and has continued to get stronger every year since the redo). The feedback has been really good.

https://datagolf.com/tournament-summaries

AgLA06 said:

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JCA1 said:

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One of the big issues is none of the better clubs in Dallas or Houston currently host an event and will be virtually impossible to talk to them into doing it at this point. So you're left with second tier courses as an option. Add in the weather and Texas becomes a tough spot on the tour schedule.

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There's also the reality that many of the nicer clubs are amazing places, but horible for fan access and walkabililty. That played a part in moving the Chevron from Carlton Woods to Memorial Park.

The other reality is both the host committees and PGAT have realized it isn't ideal to host a tournament in a large city if the actual course isn't in the city within 20 minutes of the city's population base and commercial centers (and of course sponsers and their customer base).

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Very true. Texas sprawl hurts in this respect.

If you leave in majors, they were 26th and 28th out of 37 events in 2026 (using X factor which weighs size and strength). But 4 of those 37 events were secondary events for the bottom feeder players played on the same weekend as bigger events. So really 26th and 28th out of 33. SA was at 25 and the Byron Nelson at 30. So again, unfortunately, all basically bottom quartile events. Remove the majors and all are still bottom third. Top 25 out of 29. Like I said, nothing to write home about.

Blame the Signature events. The Byron Nelson and Colonial were sandwiched in between a signature event and the PGA Championship and afterwards Jack Nicklaus's Memorial tournament. If any taxes tournaments make the championship level, they will have a wonderful field of players

Nike filmed a commercial out there in 2008 at the backend of the renovation we were wrapping up. We had carts staged for Immelman, Leonard, Cink, AK, and Tiger. Cink was the only one that actually drove around to check things out, the other fellas kinda looked around from the 1st tee and 9th green. Tiger got as far as the balcony on the 16th...he didnt care.

AGMD87 said:

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Blame the Signature events. The Byron Nelson and Colonial were sandwiched in between a signature event and the PGA Championship and afterwards Jack Nicklaus's Memorial tournament. If any taxes tournaments make the championship level, they will have a wonderful field of players

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It started back in 2007 for the Nelson. Byron died in the fall of 06 and the Players moved from March to May. It had been the Tour's premiere May event for decades, but the squeeze began and it fell off quickly. Part of that squeeze too was Quail Hollow coming onto the scene hosting a May event in 2003; the players love that course so as it gained popularity, the May squeeze increased. Now you have 2 events on a higher rung (just sub PGA for Players in recent years), and add that there is also Jack's Memorial looming the first weekend in June. The Colonial suffers from that same squeeze, although prior to 2007, it suffered somewhat of a squeeze between the Nelson and the Memorial as well as the fact some guys prefer to take a week off vs play the anti-bomber shotmaker course. For years, it had an okay field but nowhere near the Nelson's until the Nelson crashed.

I do agree that if a Texas event gets a Championship event, it will be very successful. That said, I don't expect any slouches for those championship events. They'll all be good