Mark Schlabach, ESPN Senior Author
Six-time PGA Tour winner Lucas Glover known as the circuit’s newly introduced modifications to diminished subject 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 modifications.
“They suppose we’re silly,” Glover mentioned.
Matt Fitzpatrick, the 2022 U.S. Open winner, appeared to help Glover’s place in a publish on his X account Monday: “He is so proper, pathetic that tempo of play is [spoken] about yearly and nothing ever will get achieved.”
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Regardless, the PGA Tour might be smaller beginning in 2026. The variety of golfers with full-time membership might be diminished by 25; solely the highest 100 finishes within the FedEx Cup factors standings may have full standing the subsequent yr.
The tour may even have smaller subject sizes in most tournaments beginning in 2026.
With 170 golfers making an attempt to seize one in all 100 full-time playing cards, the PGA Tour figures to be extra aggressive than ever.
“If you happen to’re one of many guys that you just 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 means. However there is a ton of various methods to have a look at it.”
Here is a more in-depth have a look at a few of the most vital modifications.
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.
Match winners will nonetheless obtain two-year exemptions.
“We have been by means of quite a lot of modifications over the past 4 or 5 years,” PGA Tour chief competitions officer Tyler Dennis instructed ESPN. “It was actually in regards to the that means of getting a PGA Tour card. What comes together with that’s an equitable quantity of taking part in alternatives for all of the totally different classes which might be exempt.”
Dennis famous that Puerto Rico’s Rafael Campos, who earned his first PGA Tour victory finally 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 that 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 in case 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 expect it is best to have certainty of schedule.
“All of those modifications 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 taking part in good golf.
“I’ve discovered over time that while you play very well, it would not matter a complete lot what the tour coverage board decides, issues will work out fairly nicely in your favor,” Kirk mentioned. “When you do not play as nicely, that is sort of when these issues matter somewhat bit extra.”
Match subject sizes
In two years, full-field occasions on tour with ample daylight in the summertime, such because the RBC Canadian Open and 3M Open, may have 144 gamers, as an alternative of 156.
Some tournaments within the winter and fall with fewer hours of daylight, together with the WM Phoenix Open and the Shriners Youngsters’s Open, might be diminished 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 govt abstract despatched to golfers in October, the PAC famous that 28% of tournaments in 2024 (12 of 43) had no less than one spherical that wasn’t accomplished on the scheduled day as a result of darkness. Dennis mentioned there have been no less than one other dozen that have been accomplished at the hours of darkness.
“It is a vital variety of tournaments, a major variety of rounds,” Dennis mentioned. “It is all the time been like that, nevertheless it’s not the product that we need to put forth.”
In a event that’s diminished from a 156-man subject to 144, there might 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 quicker.
“You get a greater tempo of play coverage or implement the one you will 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 in case 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 “doubtlessly vital fines” for lagging behind their opponents in common shot instances.
Dennis declined to say what number of golfers have been fined by the PGA Tour for sluggish play lately.
“It is an enormous focus, nevertheless it’s not so simple as, ‘Are folks getting penalty strokes out on the course?'” Dennis mentioned. “It has lots to do with the variety of gamers on the course, and it has lots to do with the person taking part in habits of every participant.”
Pathways to PGA Tour
Subject sizes and full memberships aren’t the one issues that might be diminished beginning in 2026. There may 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 might be reallocated to the subsequent 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 reducing alternatives, proper?” mentioned Harman, a member of the Participant Advisory Council. “It is not one thing that sits nicely with me and it would not sit nicely with anybody that was in any of these discussions. However all these choices that get made, they’re all not good or all dangerous.
“We’re taking a look at each single sort of professional and con to each piece that strikes round and attempting to determine probably the most equitable, fairest strategy to have an incredible product on the similar time offering sufficient taking part in alternatives for everybody.”
