Kurt Kitayama’s 3M Open win wouldn’t have happened under debated PGA Tour rule change for 2026

Maverick McNealy, who will join the PGA Tour player’s policy board next season, has put forward a significant rule change for 2026.

McNealy is pushing for a quicker pace of play on the tour and prefers more twosomes to threesomes.

He also wants to see tournament fields reduced to only 60 players for the final two rounds.

If that had been enforced this season, Kitayama would not have played on the weekend at the 3M Open.

Rex Hoggard believes there are clear downsides to McNealy’s plan, even if it comes from a good place.

“The one thing I would say is we had this conversation earlier in the season and I went to Maverick McNealy, who is going to be on the policy board next year, and pace of play has become an issue again on the PGA Tour,” he said.

“He sort of explained his situation in the simplest of terms, that if you play in twosomes rather than threesomes you play better.

“When he first said it I kind of rolled my eyes, like duh that’s obvious, what are you talking about?

“But what he was going towards is that you start with the same field size for Thursday and Friday, he wasn’t taking away playing opportunities, but his thought was that we cut down to top 65 or maybe even top 60 and that way you are going to end up more often than not with twosomes on the weekend.

“I remember it was at Torrey Pines when we had this conversation and the difference was more than an hour when he had this round in threesomes on Friday and twosomes on Saturday,” Hoggard added.

“It really made sense to me up until today. Because you look at what Kurt Kitayama had to do on Friday just to make the cut. He talked about it on Friday afternoon, he was well outside the number, and every player on the PGA Tour has a weekend like Kurt inside of them. It’s not always going to be there, but they can always string together 36 or maybe even 54 holes.

“If you take away that opportunity which if Mav McNealy does go forward with this and the PGA Tour consider it that is the danger.

“I’m not even saying that Mav is wrong still. I agree you want to make the product better on the weekend, which is part of the conversation, so top 60 or top 65 makes perfect sense but you are going to do away with these types of stories.“

How Kurt Kitayama put together a brilliant win at the 3M Open

Kurt Kitayama played his way into a great position with an impressive win on Sunday, which also helped secure his short-term future on tour.

Here’s how his numbers looked at TPC Twin Cities:

When you take into account that he was outside the top 60 after two rounds, those stats look even more impressive.

Kitayama’s win has added plenty of weight to the argument for keeping weekend field sizes unchanged heading into 2026.