Written by Adam Woodard
As the PGA TOUR continues to grow and develop its new competitive format, the 2024 season featured the return of a calendar-year schedule and a revamped format for the limited field Signature Events.
The season-opener at The Sentry was the first of eight Signature Events that brought together the game’s top players to play for elevated purses and FedExCup points. Fields were compiled largely by the top 50 players on the previous season’s FedExCup points list, but the TOUR offered a pair of pathways for in-form players to gain access to the lucrative tournaments.
The Aon Next 10 was comprised of the top 10 players not already exempt from the FedExCup standings, while the Aon Swing 5 featured the top five FedExCup points earners not already exempt from the swings of Full-Field Events leading up to each Signature Event. The new eligibility criteria gave up to 15 players the opportunity to go head-to-head against the PGA TOUR’s best, and a handful of players took advantage of and greatly benefitted from the new system.
Perhaps no player benefited more than Christiaan Bezuidenhout, who logged four top-25 finishes in Signature Events with help from the Swing 5 (AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, T20; The Genesis Invitational, T24) and Aon Next 10 (Truist Championship, T16; Travelers Championship, T23). Bezuidenhout’s solo-second finish at The American Express was key to him gaining entry into those Signature Events.
“I was a guy that benefitted a lot out of it,” Bezuidenhout said. “Obviously got off to a strong start at the beginning of the year with my runner-up finish at The American Express, and that put me into a great position to play my way into all the Signature Events for the rest of the year.”
Christiaan Bezuidenhout holes out eagle from 138 yards at The American Express
His high finishes at the Signature Events not only helped him qualify for his first TOUR Championship but also helped him become a captain’s pick for his second Presidents Cup team.
“It was nice to see that the system that the PGA TOUR put in place for the Aon 5 and the Aon Next 10 worked, and luckily I benefitted out of that, and yeah, it's been a strong season so far,” Bezuidenhout said. “It was a nice feeling to play my way into all of them.”
With The Sentry field already set from the previous year’s tournament winners and top 50 in the FedExCup standings, the Aon Swing 5 and Aon Next 10 first came into play at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. Enter Ludvig Åberg and Matthieu Pavon.
Åberg qualified via the Aon Next 10 after his victory at last fall’s The RSM Classic. He then finished second to Wyndham Clark at Pebble Beach, his first of three second-place showings on the season (Masters, BMW Championship). The 24-year-old Swedish rising star missed just two cuts (PGA Championship, Open Championship) and rode a successful season all the way to the TOUR Championship due to additional top finishes at THE PLAYERS (8), RBC Heritage (T10), the Memorial (T5), Genesis Scottish Open (T4) and BMW Championship (T2). He finished 16th in the FedExCup standings in his first full season on TOUR. His runner-up at Pebble set him up for Signature Events throughout the year, where he racked up points that proved crucial to him qualifying for East Lake.
Pavon, who earned his 2024 PGA TOUR card off his 2023 DP World Tour Race to Dubai finish, didn’t waste much time and won in just his third start as a TOUR member at the Farmers Insurance Open. The 31-year-old became the first Frenchman to win on TOUR since World War II and also qualified for the next week’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am via the Aon Swing 5. He went on to finish in third, one shot behind Åberg and two back from the winner, Wyndham Clark, at the 54-hole weather-shortened event.
Matthieu Pavon wins 2024 Farmers Insurance Open
Later in the year, Pavon parlayed a fifth at the U.S. Open to qualify for the Travelers Championship, the final Signature Event of the season, via the Aon Next 10 and finished T16. With those extra points in his pocket, he qualified for the FedExCup Playoffs in his first season on TOUR and advanced all the way to the TOUR Championship, where he finished T17.
Other players who benefitted from the new pathways and made their way to East Lake include Taylor Pendrith, who won THE CJ CUP Byron Nelson to get into the Truist Championship as part of the Aon Swing 5 and finished T10, as well as Justin Thomas, Akshay Bhatia and Shane Lowry, who all got into the Travelers Championship via the Aon Next 10. Thomas and Bhatia finished T5 while Lowry finished T9.
After just one season, the Aon Swing 5 and Next 10 proved to be beneficial additions to the schedule and provided trending players on the outside looking in pathways to new levels of top-tier competition.
