Early look at 2021-22 PGA Tour schedule: Season starts Sept. 16 in Napa. For now.

The 3M Open this week in Blaine, Minnesota, marks the 44^th event out of the 50-event 2020-21 super-season. That means time is running out for players to qualify for the three-event FedEx Cup Playoffs that culminate at the Tour Championship in Atlanta, Sept. 2-5.

That also means the 2021-22 season is right around the corner. While the PGA Tour hasn’t announced the official schedule yet, it sent a draft of the upcoming fall portion of the season to players recently – as first reported by Golf Channel.

Much of the schedule is publicly available at the various tournament websites. It appears that there may be a one-week offseason as no event is currently scheduled for the week of September 6-12, though Golf Channel cited “sources” saying the Tour could “slide a new event into that spot.”

The new season is expected to begin in Napa, California, at the newly named Fortinet Open, Sept. 16-19, at Silverado Resort. The following week is the Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin.

The next full-field events will be the Sanderson Farms Championship, where Sergio Garcia is the defending champion, Sept. 30-Oct. 3, and the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, Oct. 7-10, in Las Vegas.

This is where things get a bit murky. In a COVID-free world, the Tour would embark on a three-week visit to Asia for the CJ Cup in South Korea, the Zozo Championship in Japan and the WGC-HSBC Champions in China. Last year, the first two relocated to the U.S., while the latter was canceled. The global pandemic likely will wreak havoc with the Asian Swing.

According to Golf Channel: “One person with knowledge of the negotiations said that the CJ Cup is looking into venues in the U.S. again, but the other two events in Asia likely wouldn’t relocate to the U.S., meaning some players would likely be reluctant to travel because of the pandemic.”

Another potential dilemma? There’s only a two-week window in the calendar based on the Bermuda Championship website touting its tournament being held Oct. 28-31. The newly named Worldwide Technology Championship at Mayakoba is scheduled the following week, Nov. 4-7. Then the Tour wraps up the fall portion of the schedule stateside at the Vivint Houston Open, Nov. 11-14, and the RSM Classic, Nov. 18-21.