Scottie Scheffler won the 2026 The American Express for his 20th-career PGA Tour win, putting him on the precipice of securing PGA Tour lifetime membership.
A PGA Tour player can earn lifetime membership by doing just one thing. If a PGA Tour player wins 20 PGA Tour events in their career, they instantly obtain lifetime membership whenever they hit that milestone. They can never lose PGA Tour status, no matter how they play for rest of their career, from that point forward unless they resign their membership. They can lose voting rights if they don't play the minimum number of PGA Tour events (15) in a season, but that's about it.
In 2022, the PGA Tour changed the requirements for lifetime membership to eliminate the rule that a player had to also have 15 seasons of PGA Tour service in addition to 20 official wins to earn membership.
Now, a PGA Tour lifetime member doesn't necessarily mean that player gets into any tournament they want. In terms of the PGA Tour's priority order, which determines how PGA Tour players get into most open PGA Tour events, PGA Tour lifetime members are in a category deeper in the priority order, behind the last five winners of each of the four majors, the winners of PGA Tour events and a few other categories. In addition, the majors, Signature events, invitationals and several other tournaments have their own entry order putting other criteria ahead of the PGA Tour's priority order system.
In other words, having PGA Tour lifetime membership doesn't guarantee a great schedule, but a player who has 20 wins and 15 seasons of service probably doesn't have that much of a problem setting up their season.
On the PGA Tour, there are no players currently competing under the lifetime membership category. Other players, like Tiger Woods, Vijay Singh and Phil Mickelson, have that status but do not yet need it or no longer play on the PGA Tour.
Dustin Johnson earned lifetime status in 2019. Rory McIlroy earned lifetime status in 2021.
