TUCSON, ARIZONA – NOVEMBER 27: Gary McCord looks on prior to Capital One’s The Match: Champions For Change at Stone Canyon Golf Club on November 27, 2020 in Oro Valley, Arizona. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images for The Match)
Getty Images for The Match
Gary McCord sat down with the SubPar podcast to discuss his bold vision for the future of the PGA Tour following its partnership with SSG, a plan that includes the creation of multiple leagues and franchises.
“Our pyramid has been upside down. It’s been pointing at one guy, Tiger Woods. We’re going to succeed because of Tiger. It’s not a good business plan for the long term. We have no base,” McCord explained on the Chamblee podcast. “One hundred guys out of all the great golfers in the world? That’s it? There will be no more signature events. Whatever they call that crap. That’s insane. The other guys have to play beyond belief to get in, that’s bullshit.”
Source: https://golfweek.usatoday.com/story/sports/golf/pga/2025/12/01/gary-mccords-vision-pga-tour-jack-nicklaus-tiger-woods-leagues/87550715007/#
McCord envisions a bifurcated league split into two divisions (“Tiger” and “Jack”). Each division would be able to draft its own players, host its own tournaments, and crown a division winner based on end-of-year earnings. The model allows for the addition of more golfers as the tour expands, reducing the number of tournaments available to individual players but increasing the total number of events for fans following both divisions.
“We’ve taken the Tour from 100 guys — 110 on this side, 110 on this side — to 220. With less tournaments,” McCord told SubPar hosts Colt Knost and Drew Stoltz. “That works. That works pretty good.”
Source: https://golf.com/news/gary-mccord-bold-plan-reinvent-pga-tour/?srsltid=AfmBOoruP0rMvvQMfV_w3PT2JA62PFO_357spGtuqEOkHGmLP4CbjrYd&=1
McCord pointed to SSG’s history of success with sports franchises as one of the key reasons behind his proposed model. Two divisions would allow for defined team and league identities, giving fans new rooting interests beyond individual players.
The revenue opportunities, he argues, would extend well beyond league structure. His plan includes a competitive bidding process for hosting tournaments, putting local, regional, and national sponsors in direct competition to secure events and display their branding. Tournaments would also be allowed to “poach” players by offering appearance-based incentives to draw big names.
“Think about it, we’re going to reduce the number of tournaments played and more than double the amount of players that are exempt to play. All those guys who are crying on TV losing their jobs at 100, 101, we’re going to have 220. We’ve got the economics figured out, the ROI for SSG and future revenue streams within each franchise,” he told Golfweek.
Source: https://golfweek.usatoday.com/story/sports/golf/pga/2025/12/01/gary-mccords-vision-pga-tour-jack-nicklaus-tiger-woods-leagues/87550715007/#
McCord’s message appears to be gaining traction. He has already met with Brian Rollap of the PGA Tour and Arthur Blank of SSG. He’s no stranger to structural change either; he led the push 40 years ago to expand the number of fully exempt PGA Tour players from 60 to 125.
McCord will now turn to a grassroots political campaign aimed directly at PGA Tour professionals, using a bottom-up strategy similar to the one that worked decades earlier. For players who fail to crack the top 100, his proposed system may sound especially appealing.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/break80/2025/12/10/the-pga-tour-evaluates-franchise-model-gary-mccords-bold-solution/
