Tiering the Swings on the PGA Tour Schedule

Today we’re ruffling feathers. I’ve tiered each swing on the PGA Tour schedule, an exercise that elicits all kinds of takes and backlash. I am prepared for battle. 

Also, a player spotlight on a golfer who has been crushing it off the tee. And, as always, a reader-submitted question. 

Categorizing all of these events neatly into swings is virtually impossible. So, for example, if you take issue with me excluding TPC Craig Ranch and Colonial from the Texas Swing, fine. I did my best to categorize them in a way that makes sense. 

Outside of a few events and the Playoffs, which are an abject failure, the PGA Tour schedule works reasonably well right now. The two-week stretch this year of the Charles Schwab Challenge into the Memorial is sneakily one of the most delightful stretches of pro golf all season. Two awesome, completely different-styled golf courses. I hope we see the same two-week stretch in 2026. 

The Scottish Open and the Canadian Open are uninspiring for different reasons. With a venue upgrade, the Scottish would immediately become a premier tournament. The Canadian is in a terrible spot in the schedule, and I’m not sure how to fix that. 

The bottom row speaks for itself. The three worst tournaments on Tour and it isn’t close. 

Player Spotlight: Chris Gotterup 

In running through my normal weekly process this week to prepare for the Rocket Classic, one name caught my attention. Well, besides Cameron Young, who is going to win this week. That player is Chris Gotterup, who has been absolutely cleaning up off the tee lately. 

For the season, Gotterup ranks 15th on the PGA Tour in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee, gaining just under a half of a shot per round, though I’ll caution that he hasn’t played the strongest strength of schedule. However, especially recently, he’s been destroying off the tee, including in the strongest fields in golf. 

In his most recent start at the U.S. Open at Oakmont, Gotterup gained 1.5 strokes per round off the tee, ranking second in the field. Over the last two months, his worst off-the-tee performance came at the Charles Schwab Challenge, where he gained 0.4 strokes per round off the tee, ranking 26th in the field. 

Gotterup has four top-30 finishes in his last five starts, but he’s been held back primarily by poor putting performances. He ranks 132nd on Tour in Strokes Gained: Putting, consistently posting negative totals. Given the off-the-tee prowess and short game deficiencies, I’m inclined to compare Gotterup to Keith Mitchell. There is some overlap in those skill sets.

This week is a strong opportunity for Gotterup to post a decent finish at the Rocket Classic. Detroit Golf Club is a fairly defenseless bomb-and-gouge fest that’s friendly to the players in the field with the highest ball speeds. Cruising in the mid-to-upper 180s, Gotterup is about as fast as anybody in the field. 

Throughout the remainder of the calendar year, I’m going to be keeping tabs on Gotterup’s progress. He’s 25 years old, a former Haskins Award winner, and has already won on the PGA Tour, albeit at the weak-fielded 2024 Myrtle Beach Classic. A consistent off-the-tee advantage bodes well for Gotterup’s future. Hopefully he can develop a more well-rounded skill set and ascend up the world ranking over the next couple of years.  

Reader-Submitted Question

Reader: Are you going back to LIV Dallas this year? 

‍Answer: Lol no. Is anyone? I went last September and wrote about the experience, which was fine overall. But I’m going to need to hear who thought it was a good idea to host a professional golf tournament outdoors at the end of June in North Texas. It’s a crazy decision. And yes, so is hosting the FedEx St. Jude in Memphis in August. Temperatures will be pushing 100 degrees in Dallas this weekend, and there isn’t a ton of shade on that golf course. I cannot imagine the fan experience will be very good. 

Building a professional golf schedule is very difficult. Venues, especially with enough space for the required infrastructure, are not easy to secure. A tour/league either has to own its venues or borrow them from somebody else, and I suspect the Maridoe membership didn’t mind handing over their golf course in boiling heat. 

More generally, I’m interested in seeing how LIV Golf handles venue selection moving forward. If it’s truly “not going anywhere,” which I have no reason to doubt, I’m eager to see if they build any venues. I’ve heard rumblings of potential LIV constructions. If they built a genuinely badass tournament venue, it’d probably be the most valuable thing they’ve done to date. 

I discussed this with Andy on the most recent Fried Egg Golf Podcast, but I think there’s a massive hole in the market for an elite modern championship venue. We haven’t seen a bold, successful build since TPC Sawgrass, and I have a ton of skepticism about PGA Frisco.

Who will build the next great modern championship venue? That’s probably the question I’m most interested in tracking over the next decade. 

Ok, that’s all for this week. Have a question you want me to answer next week? Email me at joseph@thefriedegg.com!