The Arnold Palmer Invitational will move from the week before The Players Championship to the week after, and the Valspar Championship will be kicked from March to May as part of the changing 2027 PGA Tour schedule.
The changes set up a three-week span of top-tier events in Florida: the Cadillac Championship March 4-7 at Trump National Doral outside Miami, the flagship Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass March 11-14 and the Palmer at Bay Hill in Orlando March 18-21.
The Valspar, a standard (non-signature)
event in the Tampa area, will be contested May 6-9.
Sports Business Journal first reported the changes, citing a memo the PGA Tour sent members on Tuesday. The Cadillac, the Palmer and the Valspar have all since announced their 2027 dates.
The PGA Tour gave Doral a new $20 million signature event this year, returning to the course after a decade away. However, the Cadillac Championship was held the same week as Formula One's Miami Grand Prix, splitting potential fans between the two events. An early March date will also help the tour avoid steamy weather and potential storms that are common in Miami in early May.
Furthermore, and perhaps most welcome to elite players, moving the Cadillac Championship out of May unclogs a six-week stretch on the calendar that featured two majors and three signature events.
It was announced last week that the CJ Cup Byron Nelson, originally played in the latter half of May, will be bumped up to April 29-May 2 in 2027.
New PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp is endeavoring to make key changes to the sport's calendar; the first was an end to the two-week Hawaii swing that traditionally opened the season in January. The tour is expected to move away from smaller fields with no 36-hole cuts for the signature events and install a new format in 2028 that introduces a two-track system for determining the best events.
--Field Level Media
