PGA Tour's Challenger Series could bring second tour stop to Columbus

The PGA Tour already sets up shop each year at Muirfield Village Golf Club, about 12 miles from where Memorial Tournament host and founder Jack Nicklaus grew up in Upper Arlington. Now the possibility exists that the tour could move even closer to the Golden Bear’s boyhood den.

Nothing is close to happening, and may never, but golfers on the Korn Ferry Tour, which is to the PGA Tour what Triple-A baseball is to the majors, think the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship being contested Sept. 17-20 at the Ohio State Scarlet Course could end up joining the rotation for the tour’s new Challenger Series.

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“I think Ohio State will

be a Challenger event,” said Joe Weiler, a Purdue graduate who is in his fourth season on the Korn Ferry Tour. “It is one of the better [Korn Ferry events] that we play. It’s a top-five event we play out here, no doubt.”

The PGA Tour further solidified its structural plans Sept. 15 by announcing membership categories for its new Championship Series and Challenger Series that begin in 2028. The Challenger Series will operate as its own entity while also serving as the main track by which players can move up to the more revered and lucrative Championship Series, which has the Memorial as one of two dozen events.  

Where that leaves the Korn Ferry Tour remains to be seen; the PGA Tour has not revealed plans for its current feeder tour, but the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship is regarded highly enough that it likely will be invited to the “cool kids” party.    

“This event will probably [become] a Challenger Series event,” said Blaine Hale Jr., who is in his second season playing Korn Ferry after spending 2024 on the PGA Tour. “There’s a few events I would imagine the PGA Tour would like to keep, just because they’re good events and good golf courses. This one of them.” 

Too soon to say if Nationwide Children's Hospital Championship moves up

Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship executive director Kip Eriksen stressed there has been no discussion between Nationwide and HNS Sports Group, the Dublin-based business which manages the event, about becoming part of the Challenger Series. He emphasized the event is owned by Champions of the Community, Inc. a nonprofit corporation closely associated with Nationwide, and the nonprofit would make the final decision if an offer arrived to become a Challenger Series event. 

“It would be something we would want to discuss with Nationwide. … They would drive that decision more than HNS,” Eriksen said. 

If it were to happen, the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship would see noticeable changes, Eriksen said.

“The financial model is significantly different from a Korn Ferry Tour event to a PGA Tour Challenger event,” he said. “The purse is different, the television costs more [for the event].”

Challenger Series purses will be $4 million, compared to the $1.5 million being awarded by the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship. The event currently is free to attend. That probably would change, Eriksen said. 

All parties involved would need to work out details of how a new Challenger Series model would impact the charitable giving component that since 2007 has raised nearly $33 million to support pediatric cancer research and treatment. 

Most everything is speculative at this juncture, because the Challenger Series remains wet cement, but Eriksen agrees with Korn Ferry players that the series would be interested in adding the Nationwide Children’s Championship to its lineup.

“Absolutely, the golf course is the kind of golf course they would want to play,” he said. “It’s a PGA Tour kind of test. From a golf course and facility standpoint it would fit right in.”

Not everyone is thrilled with PGA Tour's tiering format

While it would be cool for Columbus to have two PGA Tour events, the Challenger Series gets mixed reviews from Korn Ferry players. 

“I like that whatever tour you’re playing on, you’re only playing on that tour for that year,” said Hale Jr. “There are times now where PGA Tour guys will drop down [to Korn Ferry] events or you will have Champions Tour guys using the Korn Ferry Tour as a warmup. To me, it doesn’t feel like that’s what this tour is for, as a warmup for the PGA Tour. It’s more like a proving ground to get to the PGA Tour, so I do like that it’s separating into two separate tours [Championship and Challenger].”

What Hale Jr. does not like, and Weiler joins him in going thumb’s down, is that beginning in 2028 players ranked 21 and lower on the Korn Ferry Tour will languish in a no-man’s-land that ranks third in importance behind the Championship Series and Challenger series. Currently, the top 20 players on the final Korn Ferry points list earn PGA Tour cards, but in two years the top 20 will only be able to move up to the Challenger Series, which many consider a B-league, instead of earning a chance to play against the best players in the world for huge purses. 

“I think they undervalued the Korn Ferry [talent],” Hale Jr. said of the PGA Tour’s new two-tier format. “A guy who plays all year on the Korn Ferry and finishes 41, I think, had a better year than a guy who plays a full PGA Tour year and finishes 175. I’ve been on both tours, and I finished 60 last year on the Korn Ferry and played exponentially better than the year I played on the PGA Tour and finished 209.”  

As currently constructed, the Challenger Series will have 144-player fields comprised of players relegated from the Championship Series (those outside the top 90 at the end of the season), players ranked 21 to 90 on the previous season’s Challenger points list, the top 20 Korn Ferry points leaders, Challenger Series tournament winners, five Q-school qualifiers and college golfers who finished 2-5 in the PGA Tour University rankings at the conclusion of the previous year’s NCAA tournament.

The triple tiering – Championship, Challenger and Korn Ferry – raises the question of whether the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship would want to affiliate with the higher-profile Challenger Series, which will enjoy better TV coverage than Korn Ferry, or keep the status quo, which has worked well in terms of charitable giving.

The next step comes in November when the PGA Tour provides further details on how the three tiers will work. Until then, a good strategy for Korn Ferry members who don’t want to be left out in the cold. Play better.    

Sports columnist Rob Oller can be reached at [e-mail] and on X.com at @rollerCD.

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: PGA Tour's Challenger Series could bring second tour stop to Columbus