BETHESDA, MD.: Four years from now, the globe’s elite won’t be playing this week at Firestone Country Club.
That’s not because of an uncertain future for the $8.5 million World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational.
The sport’s debut at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro will probably force a condensed PGA Tour schedule that could put the British Open and the PGA Championship within two or three weeks of each other, said Ty Votaw, the tour’s executive vice president of communications and international affairs.
As for the Bridgestone Invitational, “that will move earlier, too, I think,” Votaw said last month at the AT&T National at Congressional Country Club. “The schedule hasn’t been [decided]. But the PGA moving earlier is something all the organizations that make up the International Golf Federation signed off on.”
Votaw said the FedExCup playoffs, which includes four tournaments in five weeks, will be after the Olympics.
He said that 2016 will also be a Ryder Cup year. This year’s Ryder Cup in Medinah, Ill., is the week after the FedExCup’s final event, the Tour Championship in Atlanta.
“It will be a pretty hectic year,” Votaw said.
— Marla Ridenour
