If you’ve kept up with the ever-evolving PGA Tour schedule changes over the past few years, you’re probably savvy enough to know a Signature Event means big money and lots of star players. And you would be right, but when you look at the field for this week’s Cadillac Championship, you’ll notice there are a few notable names missing.
Five of the top 15 players in the world are skipping this week’s tournament at Trump National Doral — the PGA Tour’s first time at the Blue Monster since 2016 — which is the highest number of top players to miss a Signature Event in their short history.
World No. 2 Rory McIlroy, No. 3 Matt Fitzpatrick, No. 9 Xander Schauffele, No. 12 Robert MacIntyre and No. 14 Ludvig Aberg are all sitting out this week.
So, what gives? The answer is quite simple.
After the Masters was a Signature Event in the RBC Heritage, followed by the Zurich Classic, this week’s Cadillac Championship and next week’s Truist Championship, which gives way to the PGA Championship at Aronimink outside of Philadelphia. That means the first two majors of the year bookended three Signature Events in four weeks.
During the last two years, the CJ Cup Byron Nelson, which isn’t a Signature Event, was played in this spot. But the Mexico Open, played in February the last two years, dropped off the schedule this season. The Cadillac Championship took its place and was slotted here.
“This year is a little bit of an exception I think,” Adam Scott said Tuesday from Miami. “This is an added event. Ideally this wouldn’t be the way. … I think we’ve got to get through this year and hopefully the schedule looks a little more balanced next year.”
With the late addition, this has been a taxing, and odd, stretch of golf — even for players who get paid millions to do this for a living. But each player has their own unique formula to peak at the most important times. Burnout is their worst enemy. This portion of the schedule has forced some to get creative.
McIlroy is out because, well, he won the Masters, and now he’s taking a breather, like he did last year. But he’ll likely return next week on a course where he’s had lots of success. Fitzpatrick is off after playing three weeks in a row — and winning the last two events he played in, the RBC Heritage and last week’s Zurich Classic.
World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler is the headliner this week but is skipping next week’s Truist Championship at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte.
Scheffler said he typically doesn’t like playing the week before a major. Plus, he’s playing the week after the PGA, since he’s the defending champion at the CJ Cup in Texas, where he lives.
“Having three of our biggest events in a row is, depending upon the time of year, if this was a different time of year, maybe I would play all three,” Scheffler said Wednesday. “But when you have a major championship as the last one I think that creates a different kind of cadence to it. Major championships are just the hardest events. When you look at the courses we’re playing for our Signature Events now — I think it was a couple years ago we did Jack’s place (Muirfield Village) and the U.S. Open back-to-back. I’m like, I physically and mentally, I can’t do this for two weeks in a row. I won Memorial and I was whipped showing up to the U.S. Open. So that’s kind of how I adjusted my schedule to be like, maybe the week before the major it’s not wise to go out there and beat myself up a little bit. Maybe it’s best for me to stay home and get ready for the tournament.”
Scheffler also discussed the demands of a major week versus a regular tournament week. He said, understandably, everything is amped up for major weeks. There’s more activity on-site, more fans and more people yelling. The mental grind is much more intense.
“Doing that day after day, week after week, when you do that that many times in a row it can be challenging,” he said. “In order for me to show up and play my best I have to have off time. That’s something I’ve learned as my career has gone on how important rest is for me and it’s not always about spending as much time as I possibly can at the golf course getting ready. It’s more about doing what I can in my allotted amount of time in order to get ready and going home and getting rest so my brain and body is actually ready to compete in a tournament.”
Justin Rose won at the Blue Monster in 2012. This week is his first start since the Masters, where he led on the second nine on Sunday only to finish in a tie for third.
“I looked at this period coming up and I think something had to give, for sure. For me, it kind of ended up being the RBC, especially what happened after Augusta,” Rose said Tuesday. “I felt like I knew what was coming, I knew what a big run of events were coming, obviously with PGA Championship being on the back of this three. For me personally, after the Masters, I feel like I needed that week extra to reflect and get the recovery going into this big run of events. So, yeah, when you’re having to miss great events to prepare for other great events it’s not ideal.
“Obviously this event was added late in I guess the structure of the sort of elevated event structure that we had,” he continued. “This is obviously a new edition, so it had to fall somewhere. I’m sure there’s a group of players and people, the Competition Committee or whatever it’s called, looking at the best practices going forward. So I’m sure there’s been a lot of talk about our schedule next year, the year after, whatever it is. I’m sure that this period of time will be refined, for sure.”
As Rose says, this conflict likely won’t last long. Next year’s schedule will likely fix the blip — the Tour would prefer its top players to play Signature Events — and PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp has big ideas for the Tour’s future schedule as well.
If we have learned anything over the years, it’s that we can’t get too used to this schedule staying pat.
“Like, if y’all were to walk with me each day of the tournament and to see what we have to do in order to play one week, having to do that four weeks in a row, I wouldn’t be able to perform my best,” Scheffler said. “So when I show up at a tournament I want to be able to give it my best and I have to set up my schedule in a certain way and, you know, the chips kind of fall where they do.”
