One of golf’s most exclusive memberships would become even tougher to join under a dramatic proposed makeover unveiled last week.
The PGA Tour will reduce its number of exempt players, shrink tournament field sizes and make promotion from its developmental tour more restrictive under a proposal that will go before the tour’s Policy Board for a vote on November 18.
The plan, which was emailed to players on Tuesday and first reported by Ryan French at MondayQ.com, would attempt to address a growing concern on tour: rounds take too long and don’t finish on time. Threesomes for the first two rounds often exceed five hours, leading to frequent suspensions for darkness that push the 36-hole cut until Saturday. According to the tour, 28 percent of tournaments this year had at least one round that was not completed on the scheduled day because of darkness.
“Field sizes that are too large make it difficult to finish the competition on schedule each day and cause delays in the overall pace of play, increasing the average round times on tour,” the tour wrote in a 23-page executive summary of the proposal.
Foremost among the changes:
Reduce size of full-field events from 156 to 144 players, with a reduction to 120 or 132 in other events based on circumstances such as amount of daylight available;
Reduce number of exempt players from the top 125 in the FedEx Cup standings to the top 100 and add a conditional category for Nos. 101-125;
Decrease the number of PGA Tour cards earned via the developmental Korn Ferry Tour from 30 to 20, keeping the 10 from the DP World Tour and capping Q-School at five, but no longer including ties;
Other changes involve the elimination or reduction of Monday qualifiers at tournaments with fewer than 144 players (not including the FedEx Cup Fall events), reallocation of restricted sponsor exemptions and tweaks to the table for FedEx Cup points distribution.
So, who are the winners and losers?
Winners: The stars, of course, will continue to come out on top as the tour emphasizes its signature events and the game’s marquee talent. Tournament organizers, network officials and perhaps even the oft-overlooked golf fans will benefit if more rounds finish on time and within the broadcast window. Tournaments still get to keep their unrestricted sponsor exemptions.
Losers: The players who had been striving to land among the top 125 now must climb even higher, into the top 100, to be fully exempt. Those dreamers who seek Monday-qualifying spots – already facing long odds – also will see fewer chances to break through. That’s part of the tour’s effort to “minimize the impact of field size changes on the current membership.”
Any changes would not take effect until 2026. READ MORE
Staff report