Mile High Hopes

PGA Tour formally acknowledges the Denver market is being considered for one of its ‘Championship Series’ events starting in 2028

By Gary Baines 

The PGA Tour put out a press release on Tuesday that’s four pages long.

A little more than halfway down the second page is a section that might most catch the attention of golf fans in Colorado.

The Tour is in the midst of restructuring its competitive model and revamping its schedule — starting with the 2028 season. And part of that involves a reimagined PGA Tour schedule that includes two tiers of events — a Championship Series for the very best players, and a Challenger Series for next-level players hoping to move up to the top tier.

In recent months, reports have been widespread that the PGA Tour would like to bring tournaments to markets not currently on the Tour schedule — and that one such market would be Denver.

But Tuesday’s press release added an official, explicit acknowledgement from the Tour that Denver is indeed among areas under consideration for a PGA Tour event — specifically a Championship Series tournament.

From the release, it appears that five slots in the Championship Series schedule have yet to be solidified — and that the cities/areas under consideration for those slots are Denver, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington D.C. — along with possibility of existing events returning.

This is how that section of the PGA Tour press release reads:

“PGA Tour Championship Series Markets: The PGA Tour will begin finalizing the PGA Tour Championship Series schedule, markets, courses and sponsors, optimized around major championships and including off weeks at regular intervals.

“— The PGA Tour has already lined up an initial set of 10 of its expected 15 PGA Tour Championship Series regular season events for 2028, in addition to The Players, four major championships, the postseason and the Presidents Cup.

“— The remaining events will either be filled by existing events or new markets under consideration such as Boston, Denver, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington D.C.”

All told, the PGA Tour’s Championship Series is expected to consist of 23 or 24 events, running from February through August.

Each regular-season event will feature 120-player fields — on average — and a cut, with minimum purses of $20 million.

“We look forward to announcing these events soon and plan to unveil the full (2028) PGA Tour Championship Series schedule in the first quarter of next year,” PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp said at a press conference on Tuesday at the Travelers Championship in Cromwell, Conn. “And during this process, we will provide updates as elements are finalized, including press conferences at the Tour Championship and around upcoming board meetings in September and November.

“Those will be subject to further announcement,” he added later. “We’re not prepared to announce anything today. But we’re very excited about the attention we’re getting and the demand for these events as well as others.”

Since the 1970s, the only Colorado-based courses that have hosted official PGA Tour events have been Castle Pines Golf Club in Castle Rock (The International from 1986 through 2006 and the BMW Championship in 2024) and Cherry Hills Country Club (the 1978 U.S. Open, the 1985 PGA Championship and the BMW Championship in 2014).

Since 2019, TPC Colorado in Berthoud has hosted a Korn Ferry Tour event — which currently serves as the primary feeder circuit for the PGA Tour. That event has been named the Korn Ferry Tour Tournament of the Year twice over the past seven years. The Korn Ferry Tour is expected to remain in place in some fashion when the new PGA Tour schedule kicks in in 2028, but many details on that end remain to be ironed out.

“Whether that’s Korn Ferry or PGA Tour Americas, I think we have more work to do on that, but we remain committed to investing in that in order that we continue to build a pipeline of the next generation of PGA Tour players,” Rolapp said. “So there will be pathways into the Challenger Series to do that.”

All told, there have been 35 PGA Tour events contested in Colorado, including major championships.

As noted, The International was held at Castle Pines Golf Club every year from 1986 through ’06. The Denver Open (or slight variations of that name, depending on the year) was played six times from 1947 to ’63, at venues such as Denver Country Club, Wellshire Golf Club, Cherry Hills CC and Meadow Hills Country Club.

There have also been plenty of one-off PGA Tour events/major championships held in Colorado, including U.S. Opens at Cherry Hills in 1938, ’60 and ’78, and PGA Championships at Cherry Hills in 1941 and ’85, and at Columbine Country Club in 1967. And the BMW Championship has paid a visit to Cherry Hills in 2014 and to Castle Pines in 2024. And with all the net proceeds from the BMW benefitting the Evans Scholarship for caddies — which has a scholarship house at the University of Colorado — it’s a good bet that that stop will return to Colorado in the coming years, especially after the 2024 tournament raised a record $10.2 million.

The BMW Championship is currently part of the PGA Tour’s FedExCup Playoffs, which culminate at the Tour Championship.

Regarding rotating Tour Championship sites starting in 2028, Rolapp said, “I think the goal is to go to prestigious courses that we’re not there a lot, that fans will recognize as prestigious.

“We’re also not above building things on our own. I think one of the most successful tournaments in the world, you can’t argue it, is The Players Championship. That was a course that was built for that event. That’s certainly on the table.

“But I think there are plenty of great golf courses in this country that we’d like to get to.”

For more on the planned PGA Tour changes, CLICK HERE.

About the Writer: Gary Baines has covered golf in Colorado continuously since 1983. He was a sports writer at the Daily Camera newspaper in Boulder, then the sports editor there, and has written regularly for ColoradoGolf.org since 2009. The University of Colorado Evans Scholar alum was inducted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame in 2022. He owns and operates ColoradoGolfJournal.com