Las Vegas loses its PGA Tour event after 41 years

The PGA Tour has delivered a lump of coal in the stockings of Las Vegas golf fans this holiday season.

After 41 years, Las Vegas will not be part of the tour in 2025.

The tour’s 2025 fall schedule was released Tuesday, and one of the longest-running events in golf is no more. The development was not unexpected after Shriners Hospital pulled out as title sponsor following the 2024 edition in October at TPC Summerlin.

Still, the news comes as a blow to fans and players alike.

“I think there’s always a place for Vegas in the game of golf,” said Scottie Scheffler, the world’s top player who appeared in the tournament several times. “I think with the way the city supports its sports teams and with all the activity that’s always been around Las Vegas, I think it’s a great place for us to try to get back into.”

Rory McIlory also pointed to Las Vegas as “one of the biggest sports cities in America,” noting the success of the Golden Knights, the Raiders, the pending arrival of the Athletics and the potential for an NBA franchise in the near future.

“It would seem like a miss for golf if we didn’t have a presence in Vegas,” McIlory said.

But that appears to be the case.

Door shut on 2025

Las Vegas is the only event to drop off the 2025 fall schedule, which features seven tournaments and includes open weeks on either side of the Black Desert Championship outside St. George, Utah, in October. That would seem to leave a window for Las Vegas to return to the schedule if a new sponsor is found, but tour officials say that won’t be the case in 2025.

“The PGA Tour looks forward to returning to Las Vegas in the future,” the tour said in a statement.

Patrick Lindsay, the longtime executive director of the Shriners Children’s Open, declined to comment, referring all questions to the PGA Tour.

The PGA Tour’s move comes after LIV Golf decided not to return to Las Vegas next year. The breakaway circuit played at Las Vegas Country Club in 2024 during Super Bowl week in February, but the event is not on LIV’s 2025 calendar.

LIV’s Bryson DeChambeau, the 2018 Shriners champion and an advocate for Las Vegas, said the news is disappointing.

“At some point we’ll come back,” DeChambeau said, but he added a merger of the tours down the line would help the situation. “At some point (Las Vegas) will be a stable place again.”

While the men’s tours are abandoning the city for now, the women remain committed to Las Vegas. The T-Mobile LPGA Match Play returns to Shadow Creek in April for the fifth consecutive season.

Trouble for fall events

While the Las Vegas event is going away, it isn’t alone among fall events struggling in golf’s changing landscape. Since the arrival of LIV Golf three years ago, the PGA Tour has catered to top players with the introduction of eight big-money signature events during the season. Those, combined with the four major championships, the Players Championship and three FedEx Cup playoffs, have given top players little reason to play in the fall.

The fall fields, featuring a handful of star players, have struggled to find an audience, particularly with the start of football season at the same time.

The tournament in Napa, California, survived when Procore stepped up as a last-minute sponsor in 2024. The same happened for the event in Japan on the 2025 schedule, with Baycurrent replacing Zozo to allow it to continue. Sanderson Farms said 2024 would be its final year as title sponsor for the tournament in Jackson, Mississippi, but company officials decided to give it one more year before leaving.

PGA Tour officials said the volatility is nothing new.

“The fall schedule historically has fluctuated as to the number of events,” a tour official told the Review-Journal.

He pointed out that Shriners at 17 years significantly exceeded the average number of years for a title sponsor.

Greg Robertson covers golf for the Review-Journal. He can be reached at grobertson@reviewjournal.com.