Six-time PGA Tour winner Lucas Glover known as the circuit’s newly introduced adjustments to lowered area sizes and the variety of totally exempt playing cards “horrible.”
In an interview with Golfweek, Glover mentioned the PGA Tour Participant Advisory Council and coverage board have been “hiding behind tempo of play” to justify the novel adjustments.
“They suppose we’re silly,” Glover mentioned.
Matt Fitzpatrick, the 2022 U.S. Open winner, appeared to help Glover’s place in a put up on his X account Monday: “He is so proper, pathetic that tempo of play is [spoken] about yearly and nothing ever will get carried out.”
Regardless, the PGA Tour will probably be smaller beginning in 2026. The variety of golfers with full-time membership will probably be lowered by 25; solely the highest 100 finishes within the FedEx Cup factors standings could have full standing the following yr.
The tour will even have smaller area sizes in most tournaments beginning in 2026.
With 170 golfers making an attempt to seize certainly one of 100 full-time playing cards, the PGA Tour figures to be extra aggressive than ever.
“For those who’re one of many guys that you simply really feel like you are going to be affected by it, you are very upset by it, and I perceive that,” mentioned 2023 Open Championship winner Brian Harman. “I might really feel the very same approach. However there is a ton of various methods to have a look at it.”
This is a more in-depth take a look at a few of the most important adjustments.
PGA Tour playing cards
With solely 100 full-time playing cards obtainable every season, the tour is decreasing its membership by about 20%, making the playing cards tougher to acquire than ever earlier than. It is the primary discount of full-time playing cards since 1983.
Golfers ending Nos. 101-125 within the FedEx Cup standings would obtain conditional standing beginning in 2026.
Event winners will nonetheless obtain two-year exemptions.
“We have been by a variety of adjustments during the last 4 or 5 years,” PGA Tour chief competitions officer Tyler Dennis informed ESPN. “It was actually concerning the which means of getting a PGA Tour card. What comes together with that’s an equitable quantity of enjoying alternatives for all of the completely different classes which might be exempt.”
Dennis famous that Puerto Rico’s Rafael Campos, who earned his first PGA Tour victory ultimately week’s Butterfield Bermuda Championship, made just one begin on tour in each January and February, after ending final among the many 30 Korn Ferry Tour graduates who earned PGA Tour playing cards in 2023.
“That is not what we wish the which means of a PGA Tour card to be,” Dennis mentioned. “That is not an equitable alternative in opposition to all the opposite guys. The largest a part of this was should you’re getting your card and approaching as a brand new man, whether or not you are from the DP World Tour, Korn Ferry Tour, PGA Tour U. or Q-College, we predict you need to have certainty of schedule.
“All of those adjustments are going to permit these guys to get into just about all the full-field occasions.”
Six-time winner Chris Kirk, who’s tied for twenty seventh in FedEx Cup factors, mentioned alternatives are there for everybody on tour — in the event that they’re enjoying good golf.
“I’ve discovered through the years that if you play very well, it does not matter an entire lot what the tour coverage board decides, issues will work out fairly properly in your favor,” Kirk mentioned. “When you do not play as properly, that is sort of when these issues matter somewhat bit extra.”
Event area sizes
In two years, full-field occasions on tour with ample daylight in the summertime, such because the RBC Canadian Open and 3M Open, could have 144 gamers, as a substitute of 156.
Some tournaments within the winter and fall with fewer hours of daylight, together with the WM Phoenix Open and the Shriners Kids’s Open, will probably be lowered from 144 or 132 golfers to 120.
The Gamers Championship, performed at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Seashore, Florida, in mid-March, will go from 144 golfers to 120.
In an government abstract despatched to golfers in October, the PAC famous that 28% of tournaments in 2024 (12 of 43) had at the least one spherical that wasn’t accomplished on the scheduled day as a consequence of darkness. Dennis mentioned there have been at the least one other dozen that have been accomplished at midnight.
“It is a vital variety of tournaments, a big variety of rounds,” Dennis mentioned. “It is at all times been like that, but it surely’s not the product that we need to put forth.”
In a event that’s lowered from a 156-man area to 144, there will probably be one much less group teeing off on the back and front 9 in each the morning and afternoon waves within the first two rounds.
The tour hopes that is sufficient change to hurry up play.
Glover, Fitzpatrick and others have argued that rushing up play by imposing the tour’s pace-of-play guidelines would assist golfers get round programs sooner.
“You get a greater tempo of play coverage or implement the one you could have higher,” Glover mentioned. “If I am in a sluggish twosome and an official got here up and mentioned, ‘You guys are behind, this isn’t a warning — y’all are on the clock and should you get a foul time, that is a shot penalty,’ guess who’s operating to their ball? That is what we should be doing.”
PGA Tour golfers are not often docked strokes for sluggish play, however Dennis mentioned an unspecified quantity are getting “probably vital fines” for lagging behind their opponents in common shot occasions.
Dennis declined to say what number of golfers have been fined by the PGA Tour for sluggish play lately.
“It is an enormous focus, but it surely’s not so simple as, ‘Are folks getting penalty strokes out on the course?'” Dennis mentioned. “It has loads to do with the variety of gamers on the course, and it has loads to do with the person enjoying habits of every participant.”
Pathways to PGA Tour
Area sizes and full memberships aren’t the one issues that will probably be lowered beginning in 2026. There will even be fewer full-time playing cards given to prime Korn Ferry Tour golfers (30 to twenty), Q-College graduates (prime 5 and ties to solely 5) and Monday qualifiers (two for 132-player fields and 4 for 144-player fields), making it tougher for golfers to achieve the PGA Tour.
The highest 10 golfers from the DP World Tour not already exempt will proceed to obtain full-time standing.
Sponsor exemptions that have been restricted to golfers from the DP World Tour, Korn Ferry Tour and Q-College and people reserved for PGA Tour members will probably be reallocated to the following gamers in precedence rating. Open occasions will nonetheless have 4 sponsor exemptions to award to anybody.
“I am not numb to the truth that we’re chopping alternatives, proper?” mentioned Harman, a member of the Participant Advisory Council. “It isn’t one thing that sits properly with me and it does not sit properly with anybody that was in any of these discussions. However all these selections that get made, they’re all not good or all unhealthy.
“We’re taking a look at each single sort of professional and con to each piece that strikes round and making an attempt to determine probably the most equitable, fairest method to have a fantastic product on the identical time offering sufficient enjoying alternatives for everybody.”
