The future of the Zurich Classic of New Orleans remains bright despite landmark changes in the PGA Tour.
The tournament’s non-elevated status is creating new challenges for the local PGA Tour event, but so far, they’ve been minimal ones, tournament director Steve Worthy said Monday at the event’s annual media day.
Worthy said he is confident the tournament’s unique team-play format along with New Orleans’ world-renowned nightlife and hospitality will continue to attract elite players to the event.
Led by defending champions and Top 10 players Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele, Zurich officials expect another banner field for this year’s tournament, which will be held at the TPC of Louisiana April 20-23.
“Whether we’re elevated or not, we’re still going to have a really good field,” Worthy said. “We’re still going to have a lot of big names here this year, and we’re happy about that. Being different helps.”
The PGA Tour, in response to the competition from the nascent LIV Golf Tour, recently announced plans to conduct 17 elevated events on the 2023 schedule with bumper prize purses of $20 million. These tournaments include the four major championships: The Masters; PGA Championship; U.S. Open; and The (British) Open Championship. The Zurich Classic, with a purse of $8.6 million, was not one of the so-called elevated tournaments.
As a non-elevated event, the Zurich Classic finds itself positioned in a less-than-ideal spot on the PGA Tour schedule, directly after and before three elevated events: The Masters, April 6-9, and RBC Heritage, April 13-16, and the Wells Fargo Championship, May 4-7.
However, the Zurich’s unique team competition, where the field of 80 two-man teams compete in alternating days of best ball and alternate shot play, helps distinguish it from other events, Cantlay said.
“I think that’s (the new schedule formal) is a good thing,” said Cantlay, the fourth-ranked player in the latest World Golf Rankings. “I think you’ll see guys round out their schedules with tournaments that maybe aren’t elevated but are tournaments that they’ve played at or tournaments that are hometown tournaments and this tournament (the Zurich) with it standing out as one of the tournaments that’s different with the format. It just seems like a natural fit for Xander and I to play together, and so that’s why we’re playing together this year and why we played together the last couple years.”
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