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Mark Schlabach
ATLANTA — After only three weeks on the job, new PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp is promising “significant change” to the tour’s current model.
Rolapp, speaking to reporters Wednesday at the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club, announced he has formed a nine-person future competition committee that will be led by 15-time major champion Tiger Woods.
“The goal is not incremental change,” Rolapp said. “The goal is significant change.”
Woods added Wednesday in a social media post that the committee “is about shaping the next era of the PGA Tour.”
Honored to serve as Chairman of the Future Competition Committee. This is about shaping the next era of the PGA TOUR – for our fans, players and partners.
Thanks to @BrianRolapp for his vision and leadership, and grateful to the committee members for their willingness to… https://t.co/d1SEdKTg4C
— Tiger Woods (@TigerWoods) August 20, 2025
Rolapp’s charge to the committee is “to design the best professional golf competitive model in the world for the benefit of PGA Tour fans, players and their partners. It is aimed at a holistic relook of how we compete on the tour.”
The committee will be guided by governing principles of parity, scarcity and simplicity and will be given a “clean sheet” to “ensure potential changes honor the traditions of the game without being overly bound by them,” according to the PGA Tour.
The committee’s goals include strengthening the tour’s commitment to a meritocratic structure, increasing fan engagement by bringing top golfers together more often and better connecting the regular season to the postseason.
“The sports business is not that complicated,” said Rolapp, a former NFL executive. “You get the product right, you get the right partners, your fans will reward you with their time because they’re telling you it’s good and they want more of it, and then the commercial and the business part will take care of itself.
“Then you just have to constantly innovate. I think if there’s anything I learned at the NFL, it’s that. We did not sit still [and we] changed rules every March. We changed the kickoff rule. That’s what I mean by honoring tradition but not being bound by it. I think that level of innovation is what we’re going to do here, and I think that’s one lesson I’ve learned.”
The committee will also include PGA Tour players Patrick Cantlay, Adam Scott, Camilo Villegas, Maverick McNealy and Keith Mitchell, as well as former Valero Energy chairman and CEO Joe Gorder, Fenway Sports Group principal owner John Henry and Fenway senior adviser Theo Epstein, a former general manager of the Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs.
Rolapp said he appointed Epstein to the committee because he has a “track record in other sports, including baseball, and has wrestled with these same competitive issues, and I think we can learn from his experience.”
Epstein, a special consultant to MLB, was instrumental in introducing the pitch clock and other rule changes such as limited pickoff attempts and defensive shifts and bigger bases to speed up play in baseball.
“I will certainly bring experience from my work at the National Football League in similar matters,” Rolapp said. “I think outside perspective is always a very good thing as long as it’s applied in the right way.”
Rolapp said he has not yet spoken to anyone from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which has financed the rival LIV Golf League.
The PGA Tour and the PIF signed a framework agreement to form an alliance in June 2023. The sides still haven’t reached a deal and haven’t talked in months, according to sources.
Outgoing PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, Woods and Scott met with PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan at the White House on Feb. 20 but couldn’t hammer out a deal. President Donald Trump has also been involved in the talks.
The PGA Tour announced Tuesday that it is returning to Trump National Doral in Miami next season for the first time since 2016. The course owned by the president will host a $20 million signature event on the first weekend in May.
“I think everyone is excited about returning to a course [where] we have decades of experience,” Rolapp said. “I think the players are excited. I think we’re looking forward to bringing that back as a PGA Tour tradition.”
ESPN reported in April that the PGA Tour rejected the PIF’s most recent offer to invest $1.5 billion into PGA Tour Enterprises, the tour’s for-profit entity, which came with the caveat that the LIV Golf League would remain intact.
The PIF also wanted Al-Rumayyan to serve as co-chairman of PGA Tour Enterprises’ board. Gorder is chairman of the PGA Tour Enterprises board, and Woods serves as vice chairman.
Sources told ESPN last week that Al-Rumayyan has told LIV Golf League players and managers that he “can hold his breath as long as anyone.”
“I have not spoken to anyone from the Public Investment Fund,” Rolapp said. “I’ve been here for three weeks, so my focus has obviously been on the [PGA] Tour and focusing on the tour and in learning and starting to develop a bit of a vision for the future.”
When Rolapp was asked whether reunification and reaching a deal with PIF was a high priority, he said, “I think my primary focus is going to be on strengthening the tour, and blank sheet of paper means blank sheet of paper. Whatever does that, I’ll pursue aggressively. That’s how I view it.”
“I would offer to you that the best collection of golfers in the world are on the PGA Tour,” Rolapp said. “I think there’s a bunch of metrics that demonstrate that, from rankings to viewership to whatever you want to pick. I’m going to lean into that and strengthen that.”
Rolapp, who spent 22 years working at the NFL and was considered by many to be commissioner Roger Goodell’s eventual successor, was hired as the PGA Tour’s first CEO on June 17.
Masters winner Rory McIlroy said he spent about 90 minutes talking to Rolapp for the first time last week.
“I like him. I like him a lot,” McIlroy said. “I like that he doesn’t come from golf. I like that he doesn’t have any preconceived ideas of what golf should look like or what the tour should look like. I think he’s going to bring a fresh perspective to everything, and I think he wants to move pretty quick, so I’m excited.”
