There was a time when Sam Snead could win the Greensboro tournament and joke that the place needed to dig up some buried money. After Snead won the event for the seventh time in 1960, he jokingly suggested that Starmount Forest owner Edward Benjamin dig up some of his “tomato cans” of money and use it to fix the course. Benjamin was not amused and banned Snead from the club for life. The fallout helped make Sedgefield the tournament’s home, at least for a while.

The tournament eventually outgrew that awkward chapter. Founded in 1938 as the Greater Greensboro Open, it had alternated between Sedgefield and Starmount Forest in its early years before spending 31 years at Forest Oaks. It returned to Sedgefield in 2008, where it has remained ever since. By then, another change had already begun: Wyndham had taken over as title sponsor, turning the old Greater Greensboro Open into the Wyndham Championship. The tournament has since become much more than a name on the PGA TOUR schedule. Nearly two decades later, Greensboro is preparing for another change to the name. This time, though, the shift comes with a bigger question about the tournament’s future, and the price of keeping a PGA Tour event in town.

According to Sports Business Journal, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, with a market capitalization of roughly $5.4 billion, is walking away from the Tour entirely rather than renewing on different terms. Raymond James will likely take over as title sponsor, with the financial-services company already having another major sports property through the naming rights to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ stadium through 2027. Greensboro will also move into the Tour’s top-tier Championship Series in 2028, turning what had been a question mark for the tournament’s long-term future into a much bigger commercial opportunity.

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The move isn’t happening all at once. The event is expected to run as a regular full-field tournament in 2027, then step up to Championship Series status in 2028. That two-step transition is becoming a pattern under the PGA TOUR’s new model. Japan-based insurer Sompo, for example, has signed a multiyear deal to sponsor a full-field tournament in 2027 before it becomes a Championship Series event in 2028. Sompo’s 2027 tournament will be played at Silverado Resort in Napa, with its 2028 location still to be announced. That gives the Tour, the host course, and North Carolina lawmakers time to sort out the financial side, while also giving a new sponsor a year to establish its relationship with the event before the stakes rise.

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Championship Series sponsors are paying up for the tier. Industry sources have told Sports Business Journal that the PGA TOUR has been seeking and receiving more than $30 million annually from Championship Series sponsors. North Carolina lawmakers have proposed $40 million in state funding to help Greensboro secure its place in that tier, tied to a binding four-year agreement that would keep Championship Series-level golf at Sedgefield from 2028 through 2031. The money matters because the PGA TOUR’s new top level is not simply a new label. Each regular-season Championship Series event is expected to carry a purse of at least $20 million, with fields of about 120 players and no sponsor exemptions or alternate list.

That is the larger shift sitting behind Wyndham’s departure. Beginning in 2028, the PGA TOUR will split its competitive structure into the Championship Series and Challenger Series, with promotion and relegation connecting the two. The Championship Series will feature roughly 23-24 events overall, including the majors, THE PLAYERS Championship, postseason events and international team competitions, while the regular-season portion is expected to include about 15 tournaments. At least 90 Championship Series players will retain full status for the following season, while at least 20 players will be promoted from the Challenger Series.

This isn’t happening in isolation. The PGA TOUR has already begun filling those limited Championship Series spots, making the battle for them as much a commercial contest as a competitive one. The Sompo Championship, The Sentry, the Travelers Championship, the Arnold Palmer Invitational, and the Cadillac Championship are among the events that have secured places in the 2028 structure, while other established properties are also expected to make the cut.

Several current Signature events, including the Truist Championship, RBC Heritage, and Genesis Invitational, are expected to join them. Tournaments like the 3M Open are reportedly pitching for one of the remaining slots. The Tour has also said it is considering new markets including Boston, Denver, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C., meaning Greensboro is competing for attention in a much more concentrated premium schedule.

A few things are still up in the air. BMW’s deal for its namesake Championship runs through 2027, and it’s unclear whether that event will be in the Championship Series or the reworked postseason, as the complete 2028 schedule has yet to be announced. The Tour has said tournament names, venues and dates will be finalized later. That uncertainty is part of what makes Greensboro’s position notable: it has a path into the new top tier even as other long-running events are still waiting to learn where they will land.

Wyndham’s financial picture also does not neatly explain the decision. The company’s 2025 net income fell 33% to $193 million, but Wyndham said adjusted net income rose 2% to $353 million, while adjusted EBITDA increased 3% to $718 million. Its second-quarter 2026 results were stronger still, with net income up 17% year over year and adjusted net income up 8%.

The company’s shares remain below their 52-week high, but the available results do not support presenting the sponsorship exit as a simple response to deteriorating business performance. The more concrete pressure is the price of remaining attached to an event that is moving into a much more expensive sponsorship tier.

There is also a bit of symmetry to the timing. When Wyndham first took over in 2007, it arrived just as the tournament was entering another new phase: the event moved to an August date as the final regular-season stop and, in 2008, returned to Sedgefield after 31 years away. The tournament even underwent a $3 million restoration of Sedgefield’s Donald Ross design in 2007. Now, nearly 20 years later, Wyndham is leaving just as Greensboro prepares to enter another new version of the PGA TOUR.

North Carolina still has to finalize the proposed funding, and the Piedmont Triad Charitable Foundation still needs to complete its agreement with the Tour. But with Raymond James expected to step in, 2027 will bring a full-field tournament and 2028 Championship Series status. For a tournament that has changed names, courses and even its place on the PGA TOUR calendar several times over its 87-edition history, the next change may be its most consequential yet.