It's certainly not the biggest news in the world this week, but it is still noteworthy during the offseason slog golf endures in the fall. The Zurich Classic played in New Orleans annually will apparently move to become a team event starting in 2017.
According to Golf Channel reporter George Savaricas, the event will feature 80 teams of two. Both members of the winning team will receive the two-year Tour exemption that typically accompanies a victory in an official event, and each winning player will receive 400 FedEx Cup points. A regular tournament offers 500 points to the winner and 300 to the runner-up.
This is a bit stunning to me. The PGA Tour has not had an official team event on its schedule since 1981 (which is before I was born). And now it looks like it is tossing one at an event that will be played five months from now. The last official PGA Tour tournament team play was used for was the Walt Disney World Golf Classic, which flipped to an individual event in 1982 and is now defunct.
Winning teams from 1974-81 included Woody Blackburn and Billy Kratzert, George Burns and Ben Crenshaw, and Vance Heafner and Mike Holland.
The format, according to Savaricas, will be alternate shot and best ball, which are both of the formats used a bigger team events like the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup. Money will probably be split between golfers on each two-man team, and winners of the tournament will not receive invites to the Masters.
It will be fascinating to see how the rest of the details here shake out, but I have to say I'm in on this. We have seen the European Tour take some risks in official tournaments recently to make the more fan friendly, and I'm glad the PGA Tour is following suit.
Hopefully this aspect of the event will attract better golfers and more illustrious fields. How much fun would it be to see Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy trying to take on 79 other teams. That's another question -- how will teams be determined? Will players get to choose? Will it be random?
This will be an interesting story to follow over the next few months, but the 2017 Zurich Classic is now a tournament I'm more interested in than I was a week ago.
