The PGA Tour is a nonprofit organization[2] headquartered in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, a suburb southeast of Jacksonville.

The Open Championship in the UK, the oldest golf tournament in the world founded in 1860, would become a PGA Tour event much later in 1995.

The Byron Nelson, which became the first PGA Tour event to be named for a professional golfer in 1968, is played annually near Dallas as of 2024.

With an increase of revenue in the late 1960s due to expanded television coverage, a dispute arose between the touring professionals and the PGA of America on how to distribute the windfall.

[8] The tour players wanted larger purses, where the PGA desired the money to go to the general fund to help grow the game at the local level.

[20][21][23] Joseph Dey, the recently retired USGA executive director, was selected by the board as the tour's first commissioner in January 1969 and agreed to a five-year contract.

[9] The former was an established major championship, but the latter was an obscure match play team event which was not particularly popular with golf fans, due to predictable dominance by the United States.

From January through mid-August players competed in "regular season" events and earn FedEx Cup points, in addition to prize money.

At the end of the regular season, the top 125 FedEx Cup points winners are eligible to compete in the "playoffs", four events taking place from mid-August to mid-September.

[citation needed] 2007 saw the introduction of a tournament in Mexico, an alternate event staged the same week as the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship.

[citation needed] In 2008, the PGA Tour Policy Board approved a change in the number of players that will make the cut.

[50] For all 50 new card earners, their positions on the PGA Tour's priority order for purposes of tournament are based on money earned in the Finals.

In June 2022, the PGA Tour suspended 17 players who played in the inaugural LIV Golf Invitational Series event.

Monahan wrote in a memo to the tour's membership that any players that take part in future LIV Golf events will be subjected to the same punishment.

[51] PGA Tour members that joined LIV Golf included major champions Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau, Patrick Reed, Dustin Johnson, and Phil Mickelson.

[52][53][54] In July 2022, it was reported that the US Department of Justice was investigating the PGA Tour to determine if it engaged in anti-competitive behavior with LIV Golf.

In late 2021, the PGA Tour had begun speaking with White House officials and members of Congress to express concerns over LIV Golf.

The tour paid over $400,000 to the firm DLA Piper to lobby lawmakers on their behalf for various topics including LIV Golf proposals.

[56][57] In August 2022, 11 players who had joined LIV Golf filed an antitrust lawsuit against the PGA Tour to challenge their suspensions.

The agreement ends all pending litigation between the organizations, and there are plans for a "fair and objective" process to readmit players blacklisted by the PGA Tour for defecting to LIV.

[citation needed] In most of the regular events on tour, the field is either 132, 144 or 156 players, depending on time of year (and available daylight hours).

Any tournament stopped before 54 holes can be completed is reverted to the 36-hole score and the win is considered unofficial, notably Adam Scott at the 2005 Nissan Open.

Special Temporary Members receive unlimited sponsor exemptions, while non-members are limited to seven per season and twelve total events.

While it considered invoking an option to opt out of its broadcast television contracts in 2017, the PGA Tour ultimately decided against doing so.

The service is offered as a subscription basis; until 2019, it was operated by BAMTech (formerly MLB Advanced Media), and for a period, was also carried as part of ESPN+.

As a part of that deal, it became sponsor of the season's opening tournament, a winners-only event that was renamed the SBS Championship effective in 2010.

[95] In June 2018, it was announced that Eurosport's parent company Discovery, Inc. had acquired exclusive international media rights to the PGA Tour outside of the United States, beginning 2019, under a 12-year, US$2 billion deal.

The service will replace PGA Tour Live in international markets as existing rights lapse, beginning with Australia, Canada, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia and Spain in January 2019.

[96][97][98] GolfTV also acquired rights to the Ryder Cup and European Tour in selected markets, and signed a deal with Tiger Woods to develop original content centered upon him.

Several of the winners had a good deal of international success before their PGA Tour rookie season, and some have been in their thirties when they won the award.