The PGA Tour is officially getting smaller in 2026.
On Monday, the PGA Tour Policy Board approved “competitive changes supported by the Player Advisory Council that will deliver a stronger and more competitive and entertaining PGA Tour to fans, players, tournaments and partners,” according to the PGA Tour.
The changes include field size adjustments to account for events with limited daylight and minor changes to the FedExCup points structure. Eligibility and field size changes will take effect for the 2026 season, while adjustments to the FedExCup points system will be implemented beginning in 2025.
“Today’s announced changes build on the competitive and schedule enhancements incorporated over the last six years in seeking the best version of the PGA Tour for our fans, players, tournaments and partners,” PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan said in a release. “This was a true collaborative effort, and I’m extremely proud of the PAC for the time and effort they put into evaluating how we build a stronger PGA Tour.”
For eligibility, the changes include exempt status changing from top 125 to top 100 in the FedExCup standings with conditional status for finishers 101-125. This change was incorporated for players who receive their cards via the Korn Ferry Tour/DP World Tour/Q-School to have a greater certainty of schedule and equitable playing opportunities for full-field events, per the release.
Only the top 20 finishers on the Korn Ferry Tour will receive PGA Tour cards instead of 30. Ten players from the DP World Tour will still receive cards, and Q-School will be limited to five instead of five and ties.
For Monday qualifiers, in 144-player fields, only four spots will be available. That number goes to two spots for 132-player events and none for 120-player fields.
Sponsor exemptions used for players in the DP World Tour/Korn Ferry Tour/Q-School category, and those restricted to PGA Tour members, will be removed and reallocated to the next eligible members on the priority ranking. Open events maintain unrestricted sponsor exemptions.
As for field sizes, the Tour is reducing the maximum number of players in a starting field played on one course from 156 to 144 players; a reduction to 120 or 132 as required by circumstances such as daylight. The Players will move to a field size of 120 players. Most tournaments played on multiple courses will stay at 156 players, with the exception of the Farmers Insurance Open, which will have 144 players.
These FedEx Cup points changes go into effect next year: major championships and the Players will have a slight increase to second-place points and a slight decrease in points for positions 11 and beyond. Signature events will have a slight decrease in points for positions 7 and beyond.
Some other approved changes include the top-10 finishers and ties, including amateurs, to be granted access to the next event, rather than the top-10 professionals. Additionally, an extra point will be awarded for a top-five finish in PGA Tour University Accelerated. Additionally, Invitational eligibility adjustments were made for the Players, Charles Schwab Challenge and Genesis Scottish Open to align with the revised standard eligibility structure.
“The PAC discussions were based on a number of guiding principles, including our belief that PGA Tour membership is the pinnacle of achievement in men’s professional golf,” said Policy Board player director Adam Scott. “The player representatives of the PGA Tour recognize the need to be continually improving its offerings to enhance the golf fan experience. The changes approved today will provide equitable playing opportunities for new young talent to be showcased, and positively refine the playing experience for our members.”
“There’s 200 guys that this is their life and their job,” he said.
As the PGA Tour Policy Board meets Monday to vote on a number of changes that include reducing field sizes and the number of fully exempt cards available beginning in 2026, former U.S. Open champion Lucas Glover has emerged as its most vocal opponent.
“I think it’s terrible,” he said. “And then hiding behind pace of play, I think challenges our intelligence. They think we’re stupid.”
Glover contends that 20 years ago when he was starting out on the Tour, there were no more than a handful of slow players. Now? “We have 50,” he said. “So don’t cut fields because it’s a pace of play issue. Tell us to play faster, or just say you’re trying to appease six guys and make them happy so they don’t go somewhere else and play golf.”
This is a sore subject with Glover, who notes he has been part of the “cool kid meetings and not in the cool kid meetings,” and points out the Tour’s job is to do what’s right for the full membership. “There’s 200 guys that this is their life and their job,” he said.
Gary Young, the Tour’s senior vice president of rules and competition, takes a different view. Will reduced field sizes help the pace of play? “Absolutely it will,” he said. “It’s something that we’ve been saying for years that 156-man fields are too many players. It’s basically 78 players in a wave, 13 groups per side and our pace of play is set somewhere around 4 and half hours. You do the math and if they play in time par, which is basically 2 hours and 15 minutes, they make the turn and all of a sudden the group ahead of them is just walking off the tee because there’s 2 hours and 12 minutes of tee times. It becomes a parking lot. There’s nowhere to go.”
To Young, the solution is larger tee-time intervals and to do that the Tour must reduce the fields.
“We asked ourselves in the PAC meetings if we were starting the Tour from scratch what would be our maximum field size?” Young explained. “As we talked it through with the players on that subcommittee, there was agreement in the room that you would never build it so that groups would be turning and waiting at the turn. So that’s where the whole idea of 144 being our maximum field size, everyone felt that that was the right number, and the mathematics on it worked. You’ll see that some of our other fields have been reduced even further, and that’s due to time constraints.
“So a great example is we play a field size of 144 players at the Players Championship, and there’s not enough daylight for 144 players. But we always placed an emphasis on starts for members, trying to maximize the number of starts they could get in a season, and sometimes, unfortunately, it was at the detriment of everyone else in the tournament. Now we looked at it from strictly how many hours of daylight do we have, and what’s the proper field size for each event on Tour. So we went straight by sunrise and sunset building in about three hours between the waves, which is what you need. And then that gives the afternoon wave some room to run, they’re not starting out right behind the last group making the turn and backing up. So we think that we’ve done a nice job building the schedule and finally getting all the field sizes correct for the future.”
Glover has a better idea.
“You get a better pace of play policy or enforce the one you have better,” he said. “If I’m in a slow twosome and an official came up and said, ‘You guys are behind, this is not a warning, y’all are on the clock and if you get a bad time, that’s a shot penalty,’ guess who’s running to their ball? That’s what we need to be doing.”
But the Tour’s system has shied away from handing out penalty strokes – the current system warns a group that they are out of position, then it gets told they are being put on the clock. If a player exceeds the time limit, the official has to tell them immediately but there is no punishment for the first bad time; not until the second bad time is a player penalized. Young conceded, “You’d have to be somewhat crazy or not paying attention to ever reach that final stage.”
Young acknowledged if the changes to field sizes is approved, it likely won’t mean any significant change to the number of slow play penalties.
“Unless they change the structure of the process, which is a four-tiered process, no,” he said. “If the players themselves want to make a serious change to it and want to visit moving to a penalty phase sooner, it’s their organization, we certainly would implement it if that’s something they want to put into effect. But we’re not there right now.”
Where we are is on the verge of reducing field sizes and not everyone — especially Glover — is happy about it.
“I didn’t think the points were equitable and a bunch of guys felt the same way.”
LOS CABOS, Mexico – Maverick McNealy has a beautiful mind.
A few months ago, he was perplexed at what appeared to him to be an inequity in the FedEx Cup points given for majors, signature events, regular events and opposite field events. It was a topic that caused plenty of heartburn among players – particularly the rank and file trying to keep their card – and best exemplified by Lanto Griffin who told Golfweek last fall, “Give them all the money they want but when you start giving them the points, I’ve got a problem with that. Do you know what fifth in an elevated event next year makes in FedEx Cup points? 300. It’s 110 for a normal event. So I go play Torrey Pines with 156 players and a cut and Rory goes to L.A. the next week in a 78 players, no-cut field, and he gets nearly three times the points for the same finish. How is one going to compete with that?”
Griffin knew intuitively that something was out of whack; McNealy went a step further and did the math.
“It was a personal exploration,” McNealy called it. “I didn’t think the points were equitable and a bunch of guys felt the same way.”
Maverick McNealy of prepares to pl his shot from the fourth tee during the second round of the 2024 World Wide Technology Championship at El Cardonal at Diamante. (Orlando Ramirez/Getty Images)
What he found confirmed his beliefs and he eventually shared his findings with the PGA Tour and the Player Advisory Council, who proposed an adjustment to the FedEx Cup points distribution table that, if approved at the Tour’s upcoming board meeting on Nov. 18, would take effect in 2025.
“He’s a genius, dude,” said Camilo Villegas, the chairman of the PAC this year. “He dug into the numbers and came up with what he thinks is a lot more fair way. We studied the whole situation, and it is fairer, so I give him credit for that.”
McNealy, a 29-year-old Stanford graduate, said it was looking at the results of Canadian pro Corey Conners that initially sent him down this rabbit hole.
“In back-to-back weeks, he finished sixth at the RBC Canadian Open and had a two-way T-20 at the Memorial. So he earned 100 points at Canadian and he got 97.5 at the Memorial. I was like, ‘Hold on a sec. That doesn’t seem right,’” McNealy said.
McNealy sought to use as an objective mathematical measurement to determine if the points was equitable and settled on using Data Golf’s True Strokes Gained, which he described as an apples-to-apples comparison across any tournament and any tour while accounting for how much a player beats the field average, how strong the field is and the size of the field.
“So Corey’s true strokes gained according to Data Golf was plus 2.78 at the RBC Canadian, and plus 1.78 at the Memorial. So he was a full shot better and earned the same number of points in the regular event versus the signature,” McNealy explained.
He crunched the numbers for each tournament and this is what he discovered: “Basically, the guys in the majors played better to earn 300 points than the guys did, but otherwise it’s pretty equitable. The guys who finished with 100 points in the signature events played worse than the guys who earned 100 points in the regular, opposite and major fields. So basically it told me that from 100 to 60-ish (points), the signature events were getting way too many points.
“If you play the same quality of golf, no matter what tournament you’re playing, you should get the same number of points. The purse should be different because obviously, you know, Signature events, you’re rewarding guys who have really good years, but I think just because you finished top 50 doesn’t mean you should earn more points the following year than the guy who played just as well.”
McNealy shared his research with his caddie at the time, his swing coach, his stats guru, his agent and one or two other people. It didn’t take long for it to go viral on the Tour.
“I was shocked,” McNealy said. “It felt like a month, month and a half later most people on Tour had seen it. I sensed an overwhelming frustration with ‘I feel like I’m playing better, but I’m not getting as much points as that guy in that tournament.’ And so I think everyone’s kind of thinking this and wanting an answer. And guy’s were like, ‘Hey, look, I was right.’”
That included Griffin, who said of McNealy, “he’s a lot smarter than us. He proved what we already knew but did it in a way with numbers that the Tour had no choice but to make a change. It was awesome.”
McNealy previously had turned down the chance to be on the PAC, but with the encouragement of his wife, he joined the 16-man committee in July, filling the seat formerly held by Grayson Murray.
“I started to see all the things that were changing. It felt like things were getting away from us, moving a little too fast. She said, ‘You should get in there and say your peace,’” McNealy said.
He presented his mathematical formula to massage the FedEx Points table and the Tour essentially adopted it.
“The Tour was incredibly responsive. They worked through the data, ran simulations, did their own research and came to the same conclusion,” he said. “They just smoothed out the curve; I’m totally on board with what they’re doing. I think it’s correct.”
Among several controversial changes that have been proposed for the Board to vote on at its upcoming meeting, McNealy’s points change might garner the most support of the Tour membership. The proposal calls for a slight increase to second-place points for majors and the Players and a slight decrease to points in positions 11 and beyond and a slight decrease to signature event points in positions seven and beyond.
“For the first time ever, guys will be teeing off on Jan. 1 with the same opportunity,” McNealy said if the change is approved. “It should be a lot better.”
A player with an average stroke time of 12 or more seconds over the field average will receive two warnings.
The Players Championship field will be reduced from 144 players to 120 if it’s among a series of proposals from the PGA Tour that will be voted on by the Policy Board Nov. 18 at the Sea Island Club, where the RSM Classic will be played later that week.
Golfweek first reported the proposal, which would reduce the maximum size of fields for Tour events to 120 players before Daylight Savings Time and 132 players after that. While the first round of The Players will be played March 13, four days after DST begins, the Board will still vote on whether to reduce the field.
The Tour has been having difficulty completing the second round of events and making the cut on Fridays because of suspensions due to darkness.
Under the proposal, full fields would be 120 players until after the Masters in April. Last year, The Players was unable to complete the first and second rounds at the TPC Sawgrass Players Stadium Course because of darkness.
The Tour also is proposing a change to its pace of play policy, with fines for “Excessive Average Stroke Time.”
Under the proposal, a player with an average stroke time of 12 or more seconds over the field average (who made the cut and played in all four rounds) will receive two warnings, then fined $5,000 for a third violation and $10,000 for each violation after that.
The Tour’s longstanding raison d’être — creating playing opportunities for members — is dead.
Pity the PGA Tour’s proletariat, who are now fretting about two votes in November that could jeopardize much of what they feel entitled to. Some of them might even be less wary of a former California prosecutor than they are of a prosecutorial Californian. After all, Kamala Harris doesn’t much care about reshaping the PGA Tour, but Patrick Cantlay sure does.
Some players will see an unfair narrowing of pathways to make a living; others will welcome a toughening of competitive standards. Either way, it represents revolutionary change for an organization whose members revere Adam Smith but are accustomed to seeing their workplace run as though Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were the commish.
Capitalism for thee, socialism for me!
Unlike most recent innovations — signature events, equity ownership grants, huge growth in prize money — these latest proposals aren’t a counter against LIV Golf but rather a reflection of the PGA Tour’s new for-profit status. After all, who prizes streamlined simplicity more than the private equity investors players took on board 10 months ago?
The Tour’s longstanding raison d’être — creating playing opportunities for members, an objective on which its executives were bonused — is dead. Remaking a complacent product for a competitive market means it’s now about earning opportunities. Every proposal is defensible, if debatable. (Except the elimination of Monday qualifiers; that’s the ultimate meritocracy and ought to be expanded and streamed as additive to the Tour’s weekly narrative.) And while it’s easy to characterize these likely changes as another sop to top stars, the truth is that any reform is unlikely to ever discomfit the Tour’s one percent.
These proposals emerged from the Players Advisory Council, a 16-man committee made up of both superstars and journeymen, and they administer an overdue dose of reality. Players are fond of pointing the finger at HQ when it comes to bloat — not unfairly, it must be said — so there’s irony in the first announced layoffs being players themselves. Whether in the glass-walled offices of Ponte Vedra or the wood-paneled locker rooms on Tour, too many people are paid too much money for too little. More than 600 guys have made starts on Tour this year, and the average inside-the-ropes earnings currently stands at $2,030,418. That’s a lot of money for what is, comparatively speaking, a lot of mediocrity.
Finally, the Tour has reached the stage of making incremental changes to better its product rather than to slake the cash thirst of its stars. There’s a long way to go — not least in delivering a product that focuses more on fans than players — but the fact that proper improvements are imminent doesn’t necessarily mean the right folks are making the decisions.
The Tour has always boasted of being a member-led organization, even when it was only nominally so. Since the backlash to the Framework Agreement with the Saudis and the subsequent governance reforms, players are now absolutely calling the shots. In fact, three Policy Board members who will vote on the recommendations — Peter Malnati, Webb Simpson and Jordan Spieth — are perilously close to finding themselves at the mercy of the unforgiving new dispensation they could usher in.
It won’t happen — not imminently, and probably not at all — but Tour players need to step back and defer to executives on fraught decisions around eligibility. And if they don’t trust executives to weigh the greater good of the business, they ought to find replacements. If there’s one lesson to be drawn from the last few years it’s that golfers will make selfish decisions based on where they are in their careers, so empowering them to determine the ability of colleagues to earn a living won’t end well. Just consider the delicate (and legally perilous) decisions that are looming, not least permitting the return of LIV defectors — the same guys they don’t currently have to beat to win tournaments and FedEx Cup bonuses.
Rank-and-file members squeezed out of opportunities, sponsors paying major league prices for minor-league lineups, tournaments diminished in the schedule abyss between premier events, broadcasters paying for a product they aren’t getting, fans woefully underserved with a commodity that is both diluted and repetitive, employees at headquarters facing the prospect of redundancies — the collateral damage of the ‘git me some’ era is widespread. The only constituency that will emerge unscathed is those whose greed set it all in motion: the elite players.
But even those who will be hurt by the proposed changes largely accept that the Nov. 18 vote — unlike that other one, 13 days earlier — is a foregone conclusion. And necessary. As it has been written, so it shall be done.
The PGA Tour announced Flaherty’s resignation Sunday night.
The PGA Tour announced Sunday evening, just a couple of hours after the conclusion of the 2024 PGA Championship, that Mark Flaherty has resigned from the PGA Tour Policy Board.
Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan thanked Flaherty for his “countless contributions” in a memo sent to PGA Tour membership Sunday night.
The Tour also released Flaherty’s statement:
“Fellow Directors, I am writing to inform you of my decision to resign from the PGA Tour Policy Board, effective immediately.
“It’s been an honor and a privilege to serve on the Policy Board for the past 4 1⁄2 years. Golf has always been a significant part of my life. Being able to blend my passion for the sport with the intricate workings and growth of the PGA Tour has been a truly rewarding experience.
“I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to Commissioner Monahan and Chairman Herlihy for their leadership in driving a successful business and product agenda; it is one that consistently prioritizes our fans, players, title sponsors, media, tournaments, marketing partners and volunteers.
“Additionally, I want to express my sincere appreciation to the dedicated staff at the PGA Tour who work tirelessly to support the Board and ensure the flawless execution of our events each week, thus providing a superior product for the golf world to enjoy.
“Thank you to everyone for your support throughout my tenure on the Policy Board.
“Warm regards, Mark Flaherty.”
Just six days ago, Jimmy Dunne, the Wall Street deal maker who helped architect the PGA Tour’s controversial deal with the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund last summer, resigned from the Tour’s Policy Board.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Lucas Glover has concerns with the direction the PGA Tour is headed as a business. He hasn’t been afraid to voice those concerns publicly. On Monday evening, he didn’t hold back on his SiriusXM show, “The Lucas Glover Show,” while reacting to the news of Jimmy Dunne resigning from the PGA Tour Policy Board on Monday on the eve of the 2024 PGA Championship.
“We (golfers) have no business having the majority (on the board). Tour players play golf. Businessmen run business. They don’t tell us how to hit seven irons. We shouldn’t be telling them how to run a business,” he said. “We’re about to launch a huge, huge, huge enterprise and a for-profit company that all the players are gonna own a part of, and we don’t have the smartest possible people there to help us guide us in the right direction. That’s scary.”
He added: “The board situation and the way they’re gonna reach these decisions now is backwards. It’s 100 percent backwards.”
Dunne, who was the central figure in meeting with Saudi Arabia’s PIF boss and LIV Golf chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan that led to the bombshell framework agreement announced June 6, 2023, resigned from the Board on Monday, stating that no progress had been made on a deal and his role had become “utterly superfluous” with the players controlling the majority of the board seats.
Here’s a more complete version of Glover’s comments on the subject with his co-host Mac Barnhardt, a longtime golf agent.
“Yesterday Jimmy Dunne resigns from the board. I’ve known Jimmy for a long time. Blown away,” Barnhardt said. “I don’t know enough to know anything. I’m probably too ignorant of what’s going on to know this, but I’d want Jimmy Dunne in that room. I’m sorry. That’s just the way you gotta feel. And not that I don’t want you golfers in it. I think you golfers have a say in this, but I mean, this is a big sport and a really tough time, and I would want some serious business people sitting around the table.”
“Yeah, me too. And I’m probably gonna irritate my peers and fellow Tour players by saying what I’m about to say,” Glover responded, “but for a long time the players were outnumbered on the board, five to four. And a lot of players thought that it would never be our Tour if we didn’t have the majority. Well, I think we’re seeing why it was that way now. We do have the majority and we have no business having the majority. Tour players play golf. Businessmen run business. They don’t tell us how to hit seven irons. We shouldn’t be telling them how to run a business. And we are running a business now. And we’re all on the same team because this for-profit entity that’s about to launch needs to get it right. It needs to be right. And players that think they know more than Jimmy Dunne, players that think they know more than (Board chairman of the 501-C6) Ed Herlihy, players that think they know more than (chairman of the new for-profit entity) Joe Gorder, players that think they know more than (Tour commissioner) Jay Monahan, when it comes to business, are wrong.”
He continued: “And unfortunately, people like Jimmy are now seeing this and they’re now understanding that their vote actually doesn’t count. The exact same way the players felt before we had the majority. Problem is we need those people because guess what? They went to school for business, not golf. My biggest fear in all this is that it’s gonna turn into the American presidency where nobody that’s actually qualified will actually run for it because they know that it’s fruitless.
“And that’s where we’re headed now with our Board, unfortunately, is because now that the players have a majority and they somehow think they’re smarter than the business people, why are the best business people gonna come help us? And Jimmy just basically said that. And I’m not putting words in Jimmy’s mouth, but I can read and I can also see what’s happening, and I know what’s happening. And it’s scary because we’re about to launch a huge, huge, huge enterprise and a for-profit company that all the players are gonna own a part of, and we don’t have the smartest possible people there to help us guide us in the right direction. That’s scary.”
Glover argued that the Tour needs to revisit its Board setup.
“It’s swayed too far the other way now. And I was always on the fence about the whether the players should have a majority or not. And the last 10 years, and especially the last 18 months, have really opened my eyes that golfers are golfers. Businessmen are businessmen. There’s a big difference. And these guys that play golf for a living that think they know how to run a business, they need to look in the mirror and figure this out because I’m sad to say they’re wrong, and now they’ve run off Jimmy Dunne,” Glover said.
He added: “I’m at the point in my career now and my future and my family’s future hinges on this, these decisions that are about to be made. So that’s why I’ve decided in the last few months to start speaking up. But the Board situation and the way they’re gonna reach these decisions now is backwards. It’s 100 percent backwards. And like I said, a lot of my peers and a lot of other Tour players aren’t gonna agree with me. But the proof’s in the pudding, we had an opportunity to get this done and it didn’t get done. And now we’re losing the people that are the most effective and already had it done to be frank.”
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The PGA Tour’s best players are at Quail Hollow Club this week for the sixth of eight $20 million signature events this season, but the early discussion so far at the 2024 Wells Fargo Championship has been focused off the course.
PGA Tour Policy Board member Webb Simpson had planned to step down from his role and have Rory McIlroy – who resigned from the board back in November – take his place. After some “complicated” and “messy” discussions, Simpson will see out his term which ends in 2025 after players voiced their concerns about McIlroy returning.
“There’s been a lot of conversations,” McIlroy said with a coy smile, noting how the discussions partly reminded him of why he left the policy board in the first place. “It got pretty complicated and pretty messy and I think with the way it happened, I think it opened up some old wounds and scar tissue from things that have happened before.”
“There was a subset of people on the board that were maybe uncomfortable with me coming back on for some reason,” he added. “I think the best course of action is if, you know, there’s some people on there that aren’t comfortable with me coming back on, then I think Webb just stays on and sees out his term, and I think he’s gotten to a place where he’s comfortable with doing that and I just sort of keep doing what I’m doing. I put my hand up to help and it was — I wouldn’t say it was rejected, it was a complicated process to get through to put me back on there. So that’s all fine, no hard feelings and we’ll all move on.”
Simpson contradicted McIlroy no less than an hour later and denied any negative sentiment towards the world No. 2’s potential return to the board.
“I think the players on the board were very supportive of him being more involved, and in those conversations I think they all see the vital role he plays not only on the PGA Tour, but he’s a DP World Tour member and they’re such an important piece in the game of golf and our Tour,” said Simpson, who also noted he didn’t get any sense that McIlroy wasn’t welcomed. “So his perspective is tremendous to us. He’s a global player, always has been, so I just think his views are important, and the other guys feel the same.”
Rory McIlroy in action during the pro am at Quail Hollow Club on May 9, 2024 in Charlotte, North Carolina. (Photo: Andrew Redington/Getty Images)
McIlroy, who has been on the front lines for the PGA Tour in its battle with LIV Golf, joined the board in 2022 and was supposed to serve out his term until the end of this year until he abruptly resigned late last fall. McIlroy was then replaced by Jordan Spieth via a board vote. After sticking up for the Tour for the better half of two years, his decision to bail on the board didn’t sit well with his colleagues.
“He was very clear that it was too much for him. He had business dealings, he has a kid, he wants to focus on his game. Trust me, I get it. But once you quit, you’re not getting back,” Kevin Streelman, a former member of the policy board who ran against McIlroy for Player Advisory Council chairman, told Golfweek. “I wouldn’t quit on something that you were elected to by your peers. To want back in is peculiar.”
Since he left the board, McIlroy has been adamant and outspoken on why the Tour needs to get a deal done with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund – LIV’s financial backer – in order to reunite the game.
“Golf and the PGA Tour has been so good to me over the years, I just feel like it’s my obligation or duty to try to give back and try to set the next generation of players up like we were set up by the previous generation,” McIlroy said of his reasoning to try and rejoin the board after stepping down. “I think there’s a responsibility with every generation to try to leave the Tour, leave the place that you’re playing in a bit of a better spot than it was before. That’s what it’s about.”
Despite being stiff-armed out of consideration, McIlroy is “still optimistic” a deal will get done and believes Simpson staying on “is a really good thing.”
“I think he’s got a really balanced voice in all of this and I think he sees the bigger picture, which is great,” McIlroy explained. “My fear was if Webb stepped off and it wasn’t me that was going in his place, what could potentially happen. Yeah, I’m really happy that Webb has made that decision to stay on and serve out the rest of his term.”
As a 35-year-old from Northern Ireland, McIlroy made an interesting comparison of the current state of professional golf to the Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland and Ireland in the 1990s.
“I would say I’m impatient because I think we’ve got this window of opportunity to get (a deal) done, because both sides from a business perspective I wouldn’t say need to get it done, but it makes sense,” he explained. “I sort of liken it to like when Northern Ireland went through the peace process in the ’90s and the Good Friday Agreement, neither side was happy. Catholics weren’t happy, Protestants weren’t happy, but it brought peace and then you just sort of learn to live with whatever has been negotiated, right?”
“That’s sort of how I, it’s my little I guess way of trying to think about it and trying to make both sides see that there could be a compromise here. Yeah, it’s probably not going to feel great for either side, but if it’s a place where the game of golf starts to thrive again and we can all get back together, then I think that’s ultimately a really good thing.”
The Tour’s Chief Competitions Officer Tyler Dennis wasn’t able to provide a material update on the status of the conversations between the PIF and the Tour, but did note the discussions are still ongoing and positive.
“It has nothing to do with me being on the board,” Simpson said of his place on the PGA Tour Policy Board.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Outside of the four major championships, players have circled the PGA Tour’s eight signature events on the 2024 schedule seeing as the limited-field tournaments boast a $20 million purse and offer up even more FedEx Cup points than a normal event.
This week at Quail Hollow marks the Tour’s sixth of eight elevated stops, and the big-money event has brought another round of criticism for the four players who received sponsor exemptions to the 2024 Wells Fargo Championship: Matt Kuchar, Adam Scott, Webb Simpson and Gary Woodland. As members of the PGA Tour’s Policy Board, players like Scott and Simpson have been in the social media crosshairs, and the latter – a Quail Hollow member since 2011 and resident since 2014 – defended his selection during a press conference on Wednesday.
“Look, it’s a different day and age now than it was. I know these sponsor exemptions are probably the most coveted sponsor exemptions in the history of the Tour, but we’re not going to make everyone happy,” said Simpson. “As we’re looking at what criteria should these sponsor exemptions be, yadda yadda, we’re trying to balance making sponsors happy, giving them the opportunity to invite — you know, these tournament directors, who do they want to bring to their tournament, to their community, who do they think will add value to their tournament. These tournament directors are working round the clock for a year trying to make their tournament the best. We want to give them the opportunity to say, ‘Hey, you have a few spots, four spots in these Signature Events to be able to invite who you want to invite.’”
The Tour’s idea with the signature events was for players to earn their way into the amped-up tournaments and reap the rewards for their efforts. A member of the Tour’s Policy Board earning four spots into the six signature events so far brings the meritocracy into question, especially given his form this season. Across seven starts, Simpson has made six cuts but hasn’t cracked the top 25. He’s 152nd in the FedEx Cup standings and No. 227 in the world.
“I know that I’ve gotten, this is my fourth sponsor exemption, and Adam Scott’s received his fair share. There was controversy and guys were trying to link us being on the board, but it has nothing to do with me being on the board,” Simpson. The seven-time winner on Tour (not since 2020) argued his relationships with tournament directors and specifically his connection to the Charlotte area have made him a worthwhile selection.
Webb Simpson hits a tee shot on the first hole during the third round of the Valero Texas Open golf tournament. Mandatory Credit: Erik Williams-USA TODAY Sports
“So I certainly think the criticisms, I knew they were going to come depending on who got them, but I’m very comfortable knowing that we’ve given the sponsors the opportunity to pick, and the tournament directors,” he added. “I want to move on from it and realize that the Wells Fargo Championship is an amazing tournament.”
As a player in the field this week, Simpson has spent time with kids in the hospital and will spend time with the First Tee of Charlotte on the range at Quail Hollow on Wednesday afternoon.
“There’s things that I’m way more interested in and that get me excited than kind of worrying about what a certain person thinks about who should get sponsor exemptions,” Simpson said.
While Simpson doesn’t care about the perception of sponsor exemptions to signature events, the fans clearly do. The last thing the Tour needs right now is to alienate its supporters and water down its biggest events as it continues to be challenged each year by the threat of the guaranteed money offered by LIV Golf. The powers that be in Ponte Vedra Beach at Tour HQ are in a tough position as they try to make players, fans and sponsors happy.
“What the PGA Tour Policy Board has committed is that at the summer meeting, they’re going to review how things have progressed in terms of the metrics we looked at, you guys might remember me talking about this a year ago, retention rates, and the sort of aspirational nature of the PGA Tour,” said the Tour’s Chief Competitions Officer Tyler Dennis. “We’re gonna look at all of that and I’m sure sponsor exemptions will be one of those things and see what, if any, changes might be made for the 2025 season.”
“We have to come together and make a decision as a Board how this is going to go forward,” Adam Scott said.
McKINNEY, Texas – Ever since Webb Simpson offered to resign his seat on the board if Rory McIlroy took his spot, it has been a hot topic of conversation in the PGA Tour locker room and beyond.
Simpson, one of the six player directors on the Tour Policy Board, submitted a letter stating he’d like to resign with the caveat that McIlroy serve the remainder of his time on the Board. It’s a strange twist given that McIlroy resigned from the board abruptly in November, and was replaced by Jordan Spieth through a Board vote. (Simpson responded via text to an interview request saying, “I’ve been hunkered down and focused on my family and golf the last couple of weeks and it’s been very nice.” He didn’t participate in this story.)
Adam Scott, who joined the Board this year, said there wasn’t anything scheduled “at the moment as far as I know,” but noted, “it could be a good thing.”
“Rory is an important part of this Tour. His voice matters. We have to come together and make a decision as a Board how this is going to go forward,” Scott said.
He added the process is complicated because of Simpson’s highly unusual request.
“Usually, a player doesn’t have a contingency to their resignation and names a successor,” Scott said. “Some of the delay is just figuring out what is sensible. It’s a shame that it is out in the public. We don’t need all the ins and outs and being spread out detail-wise. We have a responsibility to shareholders now. The process matters more than ever. I think the process matters in general.”
If McIlroy were to rejoin the board that would mean that three of the largest stakeholders in the Tour’s new for-profit business entity – Woods, McIlroy and Spieth – would also be voting on Board matters.
“I think I could be helpful to the process,” McIlroy said at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans when the story originally broke. “But only if people want me involved, I guess. When Webb and I talked and he talked about potentially coming off the board, I said, ‘Look, if it was something that other people wanted, I would gladly take that seat,’ and that was the conversation that we had.
“But yeah, I think that’s the whole reason. I feel like I can be helpful. I feel like I care a lot, and I have some pretty good experience and good connections within the game and sort of around the wider sort of ecosystem and everything that’s going on. But at the end of the day, it’s not quite up to me to just come back on the board. There’s a process that has to be followed. But I’m willing to do it if that’s what people want, I guess.”
Rory McIlroy shares a laugh with Shane Lowry about his belt not fitting properly after winning the 2024 Zurich Classic of New Orleans. (Photo: Stephen Lew-USA TODAY Sports)
While McIlroy gained respect among players for serving as an unofficial Tour spokesman for the better part of two years in the Tour’s civil war with LIV Golf, his decision to exit the Board during such a pivotal time in shaping the Tour’s future didn’t sit well with everyone.
“He was very clear that it was too much for him. He had business dealings, he has a kid, he wants to focus on his game. Trust me, I get it. But once you quit, you’re not getting back,” said Kevin Streelman, a former member of the policy board who ran against McIlroy for Player Advisory Council chairman. “I wouldn’t quit on something that you were elected to by your peers. To want back in is peculiar.”
James Hahn, another former player director, questioned how Simpson could handpick his successor.
“That’s just not how democracy works. It goes against all the principles of what make a Tour-run organization,” he said.
Hahn wondered what would happen if U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris said she was stepping down as long as she could choose her successor. Then he put it back into terms that hit more closer to home. “Imagine if instead of Rory, Webb said he wanted Nate Lashley, who has been vocal against some of the Tour policy decisions, or named me to replace him. There would be an absolute uproar. People would be saying, ‘You can’t do that.’ ”
One veteran pro, who asked for anonymity because of his limited status – “I’m begging for starts,” he said – claimed that Simpson will remain on the board for the remainder of his term. The veteran pro said he asked board member Patrick Cantlay at the Zurich Classic about McIlroy’s potential return.
“I asked Cantlay, Is Rory back on the board? He said, No. But Patrick is really smart so I thought about how I phrased the question,” the veteran player recounted. “Maybe he was just answering based on this very moment. I said, Pat, I apologize, maybe I asked the wrong question. Did Webb step down? He said, Webb has not stepped down from the board. Then I went higher up and got the full story. Now, it does sound like things change daily out here, maybe hourly, so you never know.”
Cantlay and McIlroy had been at loggerheads during their time on the Board. In November, McIlroy told Paul Kimmage of The Independent, “My relationship with Cantlay is average at best. We don’t have a ton in common and see the world quite differently.” And that was the nicest thing McIlroy had to say about Cantlay, who also described him using a four-letter word for male genitalia.
Rory McIlroy and Patrick Cantlay shake hands after their final round of the FedEx St. Jude Championship golf tournament. Mandatory Credit: Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports
The idea of Simpson stepping down and being replaced by McIlroy is appealing to many who want to see the Tour complete a deal with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. Speaking at the Zurich Classic, McIlroy said, “I think I can be helpful. I don’t think there’s been much progress made in the last eight months, and I was hopeful that there would be.”
One tournament director said McIlroy realized he made a big mistake in stepping down and is needed to help get a deal with PIF across the finish line.
“We need Rory back on the board. Had he stayed on he could’ve neutered Cantlay. He’s the only one with the power to neuter Cantlay. We need Rory to try to keep Cantlay from ruining the Tour,” a tournament director said. “Webb is too nice. A lot of people at the Tour at a very high level are thrilled that Rory is going back on the board for that reason.”
The tournament director compared McIlroy’s return to picking its poison.
“Rory wants the Irish Open and other international events to be promoted and smaller fields and larger purses. There’s a lot we don’t like about Rory and his deal. But the main thing is Cantlay and we’ve got to get a deal done with the PIF. LIV’s got to go away. If we don’t get a deal done, we’re all screwed in the end. We all know it. (Cantlay) is against it. Rory is for it. So let’s get a deal done and get these (guys) put to bed. Do any of us want to work with the Saudis, no? But, on the other hand, none of us want to fight against them and their money for the rest of our careers, either. Cantlay is blocking any type of deal they try to put together. Rory wants (independent director) Jimmy Dunne to be the negotiator, not the players. The players should only be voting on what happens inside the ropes and rules and stuff. They are not businessmen. If you have a high school education how the hell can you vote on multi-billion-dollar finance situations and investment properties? They don’t have a clue. They don’t know the business. Hire the top business guys in the world to do your deal. Put them in place and be done with it.”
Simpson is expected to meet with the media on Wednesday at the Wells Fargo Championship, where he is playing on a sponsor’s invite, and he undoubtedly will be asked about his future on the Tour’s policy board. How he chooses to address those questions may offer some clarity into why he’d like to resign and insight into how this process may play out.
