The PGA Tour coverage board permitted eligibility modifications Monday that get rid of 25 playing cards via the FedEx Cup within the first discount of jobs because the all-exempt tour started in 1983.
Beginning in 2026, solely the highest 100 within the FedEx Cup are assured full standing the next 12 months.
The board voted on proposals from the 16-member Participant Advisory Council geared toward giving everybody who earns a full PGA Tour card an opportunity to get into sufficient tournaments to have a good likelihood at retaining their playing cards.
It additionally permitted smaller discipline sizes — a most of 144 gamers, down from 156 — for tournaments on one course with ample daylight. One other change was eliminating the 4 restricted sponsor exemptions, allocating them to what quantities to the alternate listing.
Open tournaments nonetheless get unrestricted sponsor exemptions (usually 4) they can provide to whomever they need.
With modifications not taking impact till 2026, that makes subsequent 12 months much more cutthroat with greater than 170 gamers who’ve playing cards attempting to complete within the prime 100.
“The PAC discussions had been primarily based on numerous guiding ideas, together with our perception that PGA Tour membership is the head of accomplishment in males’s skilled golf,” stated Adam Scott, a participant director on the coverage board who additionally serves on the competitions subcommittee of the PAC.
“The modifications permitted at present will present equitable taking part in alternatives for brand new younger expertise to be showcased, and positively refine the taking part in expertise for our members.”
Will probably be harder than ever to get a PGA Tour card.
Together with gamers having to complete within the prime 100 — event winners nonetheless obtain a two-year exemption — the tour will award solely 20 playing cards to the Korn Ferry Tour, together with playing cards for the main 10 gamers not already exempt on the European tour and 5 from Q-school.
Gamers who got here via the Korn Ferry and Europe fall behind the highest 100 and event winners within the precedence listing. Beforehand, they typically needed to go weeks at a time with out a spot for them to play.
Up till the early Nineteen Eighties, solely the highest 60 had been exempt and everybody else needed to undergo qualifying. As a result of gamers had a card that did not assure begins, the PGA Tour switched to the all-exempt tour for the highest 125 in 1983. That has been the quantity since.
It is the newest important adjustment to the tour because the disruption of Saudi-backed LIV Golf, which started in June 2022. Prior to now two years, the tour has created $20 million signature occasions with restricted fields and a postseason for less than the highest 70 gamers.
“The fact is that we’re all taking part in underneath totally different circumstances than we had been 4 years in the past,” PAC Chairman Camilo Villegas stated three weeks in the past when the modifications had been proposed. “We had no competitors. We had been the very best. Hastily we now have competitors and there are little shifts. The modifications we’re proposing make a greater product. What does having a PGA Tour card imply?”
The tour additionally introduced modifications to the FedEx Cup factors distribution that begin in 2025, awarding extra factors to second place and lowering factors from eleventh place and down. For signature occasions, the lower begins after seventh place.
Monday qualifying will supply 4 spots solely to 144-man fields, decreasing the quantity to 2 spots for 132-man fields and none when solely 120 gamers are within the discipline.
There additionally was the continued pace-of-play downside, which guidelines officers for years have argued was due primarily to too many gamers on the course. The sector sizes could be 120 gamers earlier than daylight saving time, then as much as 132 gamers and a most of 144 in the summertime.
