The PGA Tour playoff exists to crown a season-long champion, but the current three-year event format has been criticized for years as bloated and hard for fans to follow. Kevin Kisner believes the tour’s 2028 overhaul is the fix. And according to the Tour pro, the entire redesign comes down to protecting its biggest stars.

“I think the future of playoffs is going to be dramatically different in 2028,” Kevin Kisner said, speaking on the Fore Play podcast. I think it will be more of a match play format in the final two events, maybe something along the lines of the World Cup, with group play advancing into the final 16 or so.”

Kevin Kisner pointed to a major drawback of a straight knockout format. The possibility of having marquee players getting eliminated too early and out of sight for the entire stretch. According to him, the new and proposed structure is designed to avoid just that. And given that the PGA Tour thrives on stars like Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy, who carry much of the fan interest, it makes sense.

His concern isn’t hypothetical. The PGA Tour staged the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play as a standard annual event until the 2023 edition, and fans have called for its return since then. The critics have argued that head-to-head golf creates more drama than a traditional week of stroke play. Moreover, World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler is already familiar with the format, too. He won the event in 2022 during his rise to world No. 1.

Kisner also believes the format could open the doors to iconic clubs that are impractical for traditional PGA Tour events. Courses like Pine Valley, Cypress Point, Seminole, and Bandon Dunes are not designed to accommodate the massive crowds and corporate infrastructure required for a Tour stop. 

Match play actually solves that problem, as only a couple of golfers are in contention at any one course on a given day. It would also mean the Tour does not need the same infrastructure as for a 156-man stroke-play field.

Although the PGA Tour has not officially approached any clubs, the Tour pro believes the idea is under active consideration.

The trickiest part, however, would be ensuring the format remains fair. Kisner questioned whether a lower-seeded player making a surprise run through the bracket should be rewarded over someone who had been consistently excellent throughout the season.

“I am making up names, but if someone like Danny McCarthy is the No. 64 seed, beats Scottie Scheffler in the first match, and then wins it all, does he really deserve the biggest payout based on those two weeks compared to the 20 weeks that led up to it?”

He added that working out that balance is probably the hardest call the Tour committee is facing. Alongside Kevin Kisner, Russell Henley, for one, has raised similar concerns around the playing structure of the new format.

PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp has acknowledged that the format is still a work in progress.

The Tour has confirmed the match play will arrive in the 2028 post-season, and the Tour Championship will rotate among new venues. The committee has not finalized the seeding, bracket structure, or prize money distribution; these are still being discussed. The elite players, however, are happy with the decision.

Scottie Scheffler has also backed the proposed changes. Speaking at the Travelers Championship, the world number one said, “I think starting in 2028, there’s a Tour win in the Championship Series. When you win one of those tournaments, it will have some serious significance because you will have beaten pretty much all of the best players in the world to do it.”

Rory McIlroy has also welcomed the changes. The four-time major champion called the announcement a positive step for professional golf and said the tour’s renewed emphasis on meritocracy was the most encouraging aspect of the plan.