If Rory McIlroy, Wyndham Clark, Will Zalatoris and other PGA Tour stars have their way, the future of the PGA Tour will feature fewer exempt players competing in smaller events.
An increasing number of stars are being openly vocal about their desire for a smaller tour going forward, including McIlroy, who said at the Arnold Palmer Invitational that he wanted a more "cutthroat" PGA Tour with fewer exempt players competing. He wants it to be a tour featuring the best of the best, with more fluidity in and out of the circuit based on performance.
Wyndham Clark, the reigning US Open champion, found himself outside the top 100 in the FedEx Cup standings not too long ago. However, now that he's a major champion with a five-year PGA Tour exemption, he sees that 100 figure as the right cutoff point.
"I mean, I think it would be amazing if our Tour was a hundred guys," said Clark at Bay Hill. "I kind of said this a few times, a hundred guys and we have 20 guys that get relegated every time, every year, doesn't matter who you are.
"It would be exciting. Because you come down to the end of the year, people are looking who is going to win the FedEx Cup, and then you're looking at who is not going to be here next year. So, yeah, I'm probably with Rory on that. I don't know what that number is, but I think it's just nice to elevate the product and make it to where the best players are playing on TV more often and against each other."
There have long been calls for the PGA Tour to reduce the number of fully exempt players from 125, a figure that was established with the creation of the all-exempt PGA Tour in 1983. Some have suggested the 100 number is ideal. There could be a move to reduce the number to 70 fully exempt players, matching the cutoff in FedEx Cup points to qualify for the PGA Tour's playoff series.
Perhaps there is an opportunity to reduce field sizes and the number of fully exempt players while still allowing for full-field events. Fields could be reduced from 144 and 156 to 120 and 132 players, with qualifying criteria and exemption criteria amended to be more dynamic based on shorter-term performance. These changes could bring in players from the Korn Ferry Tour and DP World Tour more regularly while also offering more chances to players who have been performing well in a more recent window than the prior season or the totality of a career.
This isn't the first time these ideas have been shared. In 2022, when the PGA Tour stars got together in Delaware around the BMW Championship to reshape the Tour schedule, many then called for a dramatic reduction in cards and field sizes to protect stars and give them guaranteed access to high-dollar tournaments. McIlroy, at the time, recognized that was not an idea ready for public consumption and would fly in the face of the mission of the PGA Tour. That tide now appears to be shifting again among stars.
Still, there will be consternation among players who are more likely to fall out of a top 70 or top 100 that the new-look PGA Tour that is almost certainly coming will make it more difficult for them to keep their cards.
