The PGA Tour is set to dramatically change for the 2026 season, and that will have a trickle-down effect beyond the top tour in the world.
The proposed changes will be put in front of the PGA Tour Policy Board on November 18, and the changes include a reduction in the number of fully exempt players each season, as well as field sizes and the number of Monday qualifier spots available in open events.
The top-line change is that the top 125 players in the final FedEx Cup standings will no longer be the cutoff to be fully exempt for the following season. The cutoff will be the top 100 players.
Players who finish 101st through 125th in the standings will have conditional status in a new category that is currently reserved for players who finish 126th through 150th in the points standings.
As a result of the changes, which are highly likely to be ratified, the Korn Ferry Tour will see a reduction in the number of PGA Tour cards made available to the top finishers on their season-long points list. The current number of available cards is 30, and that number is expected to be cut to 20 starting in 2025, for the 2026 season.
It is expected that the category of players that include 20 prior-year Korn Ferry Tour graduates, the top 10 available players from the DP World Tour's prior-year points list and the hard-capped five Q-School grads will follow just behind the top 100, giving these players access to more regular events on the schedule.
However, field sizes will be reduced almost across the board.
The maximum size for a single-course, full-field event will be 144 players, down from 156 players. Even the two-course Farmers Insurance Open, however, will see its field cut to 144 players because of pace and daylight issues at Torrey Pines in January.
Full-field events that start prior to Daylight Saving Time will be reduced to 120 players, including the WM Phoenix Open, which has a 132-player field at present. Full-field events from the start of Daylight Saving Time through the Masters will have 132 players, while full-fields increase to 144 players after the Masters. In the fall, events after the Procore Championship, which retains a 144-player field, will drop to 120 players until the RSM Classic, a two-course event whose field will decrease to 144 players from 156.
Additionally, the number of Monday qualifier spots will be reduced from four for most open tournaments down to two. In some cases, those open qualifiers may be eliminated entirely for certain tournaments during the regular season. The tour will also reallocate a pair of restricted sponsor exemptions reserved for two PGA Tour members and two players in the Korn Ferry Tour/DP World Tour/Q-School category to the next eligible members in the priority ranking.
These changes could have a dramatic impact on the players at the margins of the PGA Tour. Those who graduate from the Korn Ferry Tour, DP World Tour and Q-School have struggled to get into events in 2024. Those players who have maintained status despite coming well short of missing the more-restricted FedEx Cup playoffs will now be practically pushed out of the FedEx Cup regular season. However, events that have struggled to fill their fields without going deep into the PGA Tour priority ranking -- particularly opposite-field events -- may no longer have that difficulty.
These changes mark the biggest reshaping of the tour's priority order and field sizes since the all-exempt PGA Tour was established in 1983.