​Rory McIlroy has urged the PGA Tour to tread carefully as it rolls out its two-tier format in 2028, a system that will see the Championship, featuring the Tour’s top players, run in parallel with a second-tier Challenger series. The two tiers will operate simultaneously, but players will be ineligible to compete in both series within the same season. However, a player who wins two Challenger events in a single season will earn an immediate promotion to the Championship. Under this arrangement, the Scottish Open would not receive Championship status, meaning that while 14 of the world’s top 20 players are competing this week at the Renaissance Club, many of those big-name players could find themselves barred from the tournament in 2028 if the new rules apply.
Scotland’s leading professional, Bob MacIntyre, has called for exemptions for his home event once the schedule changes take effect. McIlroy, a two-time Masters champion, cautioned that promotions and relegations in the revamped structure must be handled with care to avoid compromising the integrity of national Opens. “We’ve got to be careful with that because then these national opens lose the fabric of what they are,” he said. “You can’t call yourself a national open any more if it’s a closed-off tournament and there’s a certain number of guys. These events need to be treated differently than the Travelers Championship or the RBC Heritage or whatever else is going to be in the Championship series.”
The Scottish Open has been co-sanctioned by the PGA and DP World Tours since 2022, allowing members from either tour who are high enough in the rankings to qualify for the 156-player field to compete. PGA Tour chief executive Brian Rolapp’s plan envisions the Championship tier featuring roughly 120 players competing for prize funds of at least $20 million. The Scottish Open purse currently stands at £6.7 million. MacIntyre, however, believes the event will remain viable and does not expect it to become a $20 million affair. “I personally think the Scottish Open is going to be totally fine,” he said. “I don’t see it being a $20 million event. I see it being a Rolex Series/European Tour event. It would be a bit mad to put a $20 million event in Scotland given the world we live in today. It’s not the same as America.”
Many top American players welcome the chance to participate in the Scottish Open as preparation for The Open, the following week, with world number one and reigning Open champion Scottie Scheffler stressing the importance of keeping the event within the Championship Series so that a large influx of players can attend the week before The Open. “It’s an important one that we keep it in the Championship Series just because you get so many guys that come over here and play the week before [The Open],” Scheffler noted. He added that it’s difficult to determine whether DP World Tour players should also be included under the new format, saying that ranking players when they don’t compete against each other regularly makes it challenging to measure.
“The best way to set up our schedule for better SEO,” Scheffler quipped with a lighthearted reference to digital visibility, “is to have similar guys playing against each other on great golf courses week in and week out.” The future of the Scottish Open within the evolving PGA Tour structure remains a topic of debate, with players weighing the potential benefits of a stronger, more lucrative Championship while hoping that national Opens retain their unique identity and accessibility.