Golf News

Home

Quizzes

Newsletter

Main Photo Credit: Doug Engle/Florida Times-Union / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Image

Changes Come To The PGA Tour

Originally posted on Last Word On Sports
By Orlando Fuller | Last updated Jan 11, 2026 1:27 AM ET

As the PGA Tour athletes and fans ramp up for a much anticipated 2026 season of play, there are some new rules being implemented as well. Changes surrounding broken or damaged clubs being replaced, extra relief, out of bounds area’s, and so forth. These changes may or may not have a real impact on this season of play, yet if so questions will arise of it being a benefit or negative impact. These six rules will start at the upcoming Sony Open in Honolulu, giving athletes a quick look into what to expect.

Penalties Not Punishments

The first of the rule changes to be newly added, comes in if a player has not yet played from a wrong place when unaware the ball might have moved. In other words a player will now only be penalized one shot instead of two, if it is determined that a player moved his ball, but he didn’t know that he moved it. A rule that sounds so simple in thought but vital when players are a shot or two behind schedule as needed.

“Good, common-sense outcomes for the game at the highest level,” Steve Rintoul, the PGA Tour’s vice president, Rules & Officiating, said in talks with GOLF.com. “A continuation of what was established with the 2019 modernization of the Rules.”

Another vital rule change that will come to be a slippery slope for those who find themselves often upset, will be in the club department. Now a player will be able to repair or change out a damaged club mid round, if the damage was not caused by abuse. In most cases these clubs are damaged due to players losing their cool, but in the rare instance of outside factors they are now saved.

Technical Cleanup

One rule change that Rintoul was eager to get ahead of, came in the aspect of limited or extended relief for an embedded ball. Now if a player’s ball comes to a rest inside of another player’s pitch mark, he is granted a free relief. Whereas in the past, a relief was only granted if a ball had settled in their own respective pitch marks.

“We’ve seen it time and time again,” Rintoul said. ”We’re getting this ruling wrong, players are getting this ruling wrong — it’s not a good look for the game.”

Coming in similar fashion to other shakeups, is one to keep up the integrity of the game. Now Internal out of bounds will be recognized under O.B. In other terms, only for shots played from the teeing area. With Tour players previously finding their way around this rule with strategic misses, these new O.B internal zones will come in handy.

Loading game...

“It was installed for guys that are standing on the tee trying to bomb it down this other fairway,” Rintoul said. “So the governing bodies had given us an option where this internal out of bounds can still be applied. But it would apply only to tee shots for strokes made from the tee area.”

A last rule change coming again in the area of relief and essentially looking out for the athletes, immovable obstructions. Players will be granted the extra relief if an immovable obstruction and not just say sprinkler heads is in their line of play.

This article first appeared on Last Word On Sports and was syndicated with permission.

More must-reads: