The PGA Tour’s 2025 season just ended. So did the DP World Tour’s 2025 season. So how is there a PGA Tour event this week — and two DP World Tour events? Why are Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy and Viktor Hovland each headlining different events? And what does it mean, like, big picture?
Welcome to the strangest week of the professional golf schedule.
(I think. There’s plenty of competition.)
I’m writing to you from the Bahamas, where I’ve bravely ventured to spend a few days covering the Hero World Challenge and scouting local tiki bars. But you could argue I should have flown the other direction instead. Let’s take a quick peek at this week’s three events — and what makes each one intriguing.
The Hero World Challenge is Tiger Woods’ tournament; he has served as enthusiastic host for a quarter-century and every year top pros have flocked to join him and try (in vain, for a bunch of those years) to beat him, too. Woods isn’t playing but this year’s event boasts another strong field, headlined by World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler and backed up by Ryder Cuppers like J.J. Spaun, Bob MacIntyre, Cameron Young, Sam Burns, Justin Rose — you get the idea.
There’s plenty of reason to pay attention to the Hero, particularly if your NFL team has already careened from playoff contention. The action really began Tuesday morning, when Woods held a press conference and took questions from on-site media, addressing (and softly sidestepping) hot-button topics like his potential participation on the PGA Tour Champions, his work on the Tour’s Future Competitions Committee, his looming 50th birthday and more.
On the course it’ll be fun to see if Scottie Scheffler can three-peat at Albany, if Keegan Bradley can continue his silly-season superiority, if Spaun can put a cap on a dream season, how Jordan Spieth looks in his first start in almost four months.
Still, with Scheffler the only top-five talent in attendance it’s fair to describe this as a slightly lower-wattage playing of the Hero than we’re used to. That’s partly a result of natural turnover at the top of the game — but it’s something else, too.
So who’s missing?
The big names who aren’t playing despite teeing it up here in years past include LIV pros (think Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau, Tyrrell Hatton), PGA Tour pros taking a break (think Tommy Fleetwood, Xander Schauffele, Collin Morikawa, Patrick Cantlay, Ludvig Aberg), others whose rankings have slipped outside qualification (Max Homa, Will Zalatoris, Adam Scott) and even Woods’ pal Justin Thomas, who’s recovering from back surgery. But there are also notable pros playing elsewhere, like Rory McIlroy, Joaquin Niemann and Scott in Australia as well as Viktor Hovland and Zalatoris in South Africa.
Speaking of which…
In recent years we’ve seen pros like Max Homa and Justin Thomas venture to South Africa; you can guess at the appearance fee structure of the Nedbank Golf Challenge but they seem to snag a couple top-tier pros every year.
This week that includes Viktor Hovland, who enters as the tournament favorite and whose quest for global domination rolls on after a stop in India in October.
South Africa has been a golf hub for generations, the birthplace of major champions from Gary Player and Bobby Locke through Ernie Els, Retief Goosen and Louis Oosthuizen on down. There’s a reason LIV has been leaning into its South African contingent and will host its first event there next year — this feels like a place with untapped potential.
So although this week’s event includes some of the DP World Tour’s top talent (the likes of Marco Penge, Thorbjorn Olesen, Kristoffer Reitan) and some of South Africa’s current best (Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Garrick Higgo, Thriston Lawrence, Christo Lamprecht) and some strong Tour players (Hovland, Zalatoris, Nick Taylor) plus LIV pros (Tom McKibbin, Laurie Canter, Aldrich Potgieter) it’s easy to wonder, if it stood alone on the calendar, what that might look like.
Instead it’s a co-sanctioned event between the Sunshine Tour and the DP World Tour, and it’s competing directly with…
This is a big one because it’s at Royal Melbourne, one of the best golf courses in the entire world and a terrific watch. It’s a big one because it’s the return of the Aussie Open’s original format. It’s a big one because for the first time there’s a Masters invite on the line. And it’s a big one because Rory McIlroy’s in town, the reigning Masters champ making his return Down Under for the first time in a decade.
The Aussie contingent is out in full force, too, from PGA Tour players Adam Scott, Min Woo Lee and Cam Davis to LIV guys Cameron Smith, Marc Leishman and Lucas Herbert. Other top LIV pros are here, too, chasing that Masters invite: Niemann, David Puig, Carlos Ortiz, Abraham Ancer and more. Other PGA Tour players have made the trek, too, from Si Woo Kim to Matt McCarty to Charley Hoffman.
But there’s no denying the multiplier effect of McIlroy coming to town. Front Office Sports detailed his world travels; this week will mark his 22nd start in nine different countries. And Aussie Open tournament director Antonia Beggs said interest from fans and sponsors alike is through the roof as they expect 100,000 fans for the week ahead.
“Everything that was last year has probably multiplied by about 5 or 10 times,” Beggs told FOS.
This is a DP World Tour event, too, co-sanctioned with the Australasian Tour; while the PGA Tour has gone away from a wraparound schedule, the DPWT has a handful of 2026 events before the 2026 even begins.
What does all of this mean? Mostly it’s a reminder that there are more competing interests than ever from across the globe for these guys’ time and talents. Sure, we’re in a PGA Tour offseason lull, but there’s more of everything else than ever. There are other ways to compete (and make money) beyond the boundaries of 72-hole stroke play, too: Xander Schauffele played last week’s Skins Game, Shane Lowry will play the Optum Golf Channel Games in a couple weeks, Jon Rahm is filming some sort of Krispy Kreme Challenge YouTube video. Would more pros be playing the Hero if TGL’s second season wasn’t right around the corner?
This all comes in the context of Harris English’s comments last week about the potential for a reduced-size 20-event PGA Tour schedule. New Tour CEO Brian Rolapp addressed those comments, confirming it’s something they’re considering as they steer clear of the NFL schedule. But it’s also a reminder that even outside the bounds of a busy PGA Tour schedule players will continue adding events.
A reduced schedule would have one potential benefit: it could allow golf’s non-PGA Tour schedule to make a little more sense. Australia’s biggest event shouldn’t run the same week as South Africa’s biggest event, especially when Tiger Woods’ exclusive event is that very same week, too.
But the safer short-term bet is that things will only continue to get more complex. From shifting schedules to additional golf-adjacent events to LIV golfers and DPWT fines, they’re continuing to build the plane as they fly it.
In the meantime, sit back and enjoy the golf. There should be something from every time zone.
Pretty good for the offseason.
Dylan Dethier welcomes your comments at dylan_dethier@golf.com.
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