Jack Nicklaus opens up about PGA Tour schedule - and he's not a fan!

Brian Rolapp, the circuit’s CEO, is currently working on a revamped 2027 schedule after a Future Competition Committee, with Tiger Woods as its chairman, was set up to undertake a comprehensive, "clean-sheet" review of the circuit’s competitive model and shape the future of professional golf tournaments.

Speaking as he prepared to host the 50th anniversary edition of the Memorial Tournament in his native Ohio, 18-time major winner Nicklaus admitted he had concerns about how $20 million Signature Events are now dominating the schedule.

“Well, I don't want to comment on the Tour's schedule because I'm not exactly in favour of what they're doing right now,” he confessed. “But I really haven't had a conversation. I want to sit down with Brian and Jay [Monahan] and have that conversation.

“I mean, I hate to see tournaments bunched too much together with too many big tournaments too close together. That's a problem, I think. And I think that's going to be a problem for the Tour in the future.

“I probably shouldn't have brought it up here. I'll get chastised for that later. Anyway, I think it's harder for your tournaments to stand out. I mean, if you looked at the schedule, we're involved in the Cognizant down in Florida, and, you know, we have Pebble Beach and Los Angeles, Tiger's event, and then Cognizant, and then we had Bay Hill and The Players. I mean, what chance does that tournament have? I mean, it sits right in the middle of those. They don't have a chance.

“The other tournaments also say, you know, I got four out of five. It's hard for guys to play that. See, the problem is not so much from the standpoint of players, it's hard for the players to really be focused to play that much and be on top of their game.

“I look at it from the way I was as a player. I could play a couple weeks in a row, maybe three weeks in a row, but I needed some time off to be able to recharge the batteries. And I think everybody needs to recharge their batteries.

“So to jam it all in one period of time, and then leave the rest of the year open, I think it's tough. I don't think it's a problem yet, but I think it will be if we don't address it.”

Nicklaus also supported recent comments by Rory McIlroy about how players should accept a ball rollback bid by The R&A and USGA instead of appeasing manufacturers by opposing it.

“You know, most of the golf balls, most of the reason why the guys will complain about the golf ball being brought back is because of the manufacturers,” declared the 86-year-old. “And I mean, the manufacturer complains to a player and says, No, no, don't you tell 'em that you want that golf ball rolled back, otherwise you aren't going to be working for us.

“You know, we got manufacturers that are in there because they can tell the players that they got to do that. I don't understand why a manufacturer would worry about that from the standpoint because, you know, if you make the best golf ball you're going to continue to make the golf ball whether it goes five yards further or five yards shorter. It's not a big deal.

“It's just now getting to the point where we got to buy more land to build, to do anything. We probably don't have 20, 25 maybe 30 golf courses that are really of championship calibre, really, without fooling around with 'em.

“If the ball was brought back a little bit, you know, we would have a lot more golf courses. Anyway, it's not a popular subject.”