On Wednesday at the 2026 Genesis Scottish Open, Rory McIlroy talked himself into a conundrum.
For years, McIlroy has sung the praises of golf’s National Opens, making a genuine attempt to raise their profiles by playing the tournaments himself.
Along with the U.S. Open and the (British) Open, the six-time major champion has been a fixture at the Scottish Open and the RBC Canadian Open (until this year). Last season, he won the Irish Open in September and competed in the Australian Open in December.
McIlroy, however, is also the biggest star in the modern PGA Tour, and his love for National Opens and loyalty to the PGA Tour could come in direct conflict soon.
That’s because the PGA Tour is overhauling its tournament structure. Beginning in 2028, the Tour will divide itself into a Championship Series, for the top 130 or so pros, and a Challenger Series, for everyone else.
A key tenet of the new structure is that the Championship Series will be closed: no one can move in or drop out of it within a season. Conversely, National Opens by nature are open: pros have multiple avenues to play their way in. Furthermore, the Scottish Open is co-sanctioned by the DP World Tour.
One big question arises from those two realities: how do National Opens like this week’s Scottish Open fit into the new PGA Tour schedule, if at all?
On Wednesday, Rory was pondering that question, too.
McIlroy praises National Opens in light of new PGA Tour structure
During his pre-tournament press conference at the Genesis Scottish Open on Wednesday, McIlroy argued the decision by the PGA Tour to co-sanction the Scottish Open has raised its profile and improved the event significantly.
“Yeah, so I think since this event has been co-sanctioned, it really has went from strength-to-strength,” McIlroy told reporters at the Renaissance Club. “You look at the quality of the field this week, you get a great sponsor like Genesis on board. They have kept making improvements to the golf course and the facilities each and every year.”
McIlroy went on to praise “strong National Opens” as a “blueprint” for the future. He even suggested the two tours should co-sanction a second National Open on the current PGA Tour schedule: the Canadian Open.
“So I think for like these strong National Opens, this, to me, is the blueprint of what it can be and what can happen,” McIlroy argued on Wednesday. “Yeah, I think it’s a perfect lead-in to the Open Championship. You know, I’ve thought could the Canadian Open become co-sanctioned, as well, leading into the U.S. Open as well. That could be interesting, as well, trying to build out this series of National Opens that have a bit more meaning behind them.”
But a project to “build out this series of National Opens,” as McIlroy suggested, could be very difficult come 2028 when the new-look PGA Tour debuts.
“Yeah, I don’t know how that fits into the Track 1 and Track 2 and all that stuff. But I see this event and I see how well it’s done over these past few years, and I definitely I feel like it’s the blueprint for a lot of the other National Opens.”
McIlroy’s warning about new PGA Tour schedule: ‘These events need to be treated differently’
The threat the new Tour schedule poses to the National Opens McIlroy loves seemed to become apparent to him during his press conference on Wednesday. McIlroy warned that changing these events to fit into the new schedule could mess with the “fabric” of the National Opens.
“We’ve got to be careful with that because then these National Opens lose the fabric of what they are, right,” McIlroy warned. “You can’t call yourself a National Open anymore if it’s a closed off tournament and there’s a certain number of guys.”
The closed, limited-field makeup of the PGA Tour’s future Championship Series is one way it could conflict with National Opens. The other is the number of events envisioned for the Tour’s top circuit.
PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp announced that PGA Tour’s top tier will feature around 20 tournaments. The 2026 PGA Tour schedule features over 40 tournaments. So events like the Canadian Open and Scottish Open could hypothetically get left out of the Championship Series altogether.
If that happens, they could still be a part of the Challenger Series, but that would mean top players like McIlroy wouldn’t be in the field, which would drastically devalue these long-running events.
Challenger Series events will also feature purses of $4 million, far lower than the $20 million Championship Series purses, and less than half of this year’s Scottish Open purse of $9 million.
That all led McIlroy to call for the National Opens to be “treated differently” than other PGA Tour events within the new schedule.
“I think these events need to be treated differently than, you know, the Travelers Championship or RBC Heritage or whatever else that are going to be in the Champions Series,” McIlroy said, referring to the PGA Tour’s future top tier. “These tournaments need to have — there’s a little bit more nuance with these tournaments for sure.”
World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler similarly sang the Scottish Open’s praises on Wednesday and expressed his hope that it will make the cut for the Championship Series.
“I think it needs to work within the new schedule that they are setting up,” Scheffler told reporters. “This is a tournament I think, like you see, the field is great. I think it’s an important one that we keep in the Championship Series just because you get so many guys that come over here and play the week before.”
“Personally, I believe it’s a great way to get ready for the Open Championship. It’s a great golf course, and the people here are great and they do a really good job of taking care of us at this tournament. I’m hoping that it can fit in the right way.”
Scheffler also touched on another key feature of the new PGA Tour schedule: getting all the best players to play all the same tournaments.
“One of the things that’s important in our new schedule is getting the same, golf is so difficult to rank players when they are not playing together all the time. That was something we ran into a lot during junior golf and amateur golf is it’s very tough to rank who played better when you are not playing against each other each week,” Scheffler argued. “Having similar guys playing against each other on great golf courses week-in and week-out I think is the best way to set up our schedule. To have this tournament fit into that mold would be really nice.”
But one thing that wasn’t asked of either McIlroy or Scheffler was how either pro would fit the new PGA Tour schedule into their lives, with or without the National Opens.
Players qualified for the Championship Series will presumably be expected to play all 20 events. That does not include the four major championships. When the majors are included, top players will be faced with a packed schedule of 24 tournaments.
That could be an issue for the modern-day McIlroy. Heading into the Scottish Open, McIlroy has only played nine PGA Tour-sanctioned events in 2026, and that includes the first three majors. Take those out, and he’s only competed in six PGA Tour events this year.
Scheffler has played 11 non-major PGA Tour events this season.
