From 25 golfers losing their full exemption tour pass to smaller field sizes: 4 major changes in PGA Tour coming in 2026
In October, the PGA Tour policy board proposed several major changes across the board. Most notably, the field size for the vast majority of events and the overall player pool for the Tour would shrink. These, at the time, were just propositions, but the Tour officially voted on Monday evening to ratify these changes.
The 2025 season will remain untouched. It will play out the same way the 2024 season did. In 2026, though, things will look very different. Here are four of the biggest changes that are now official after the vote.
PGA Tour makes official four major changes for 2026
4) FedEx Cup points
The PGA Tour has changed the FedEx Cup points distribution. Runner-up finishers in Majors and the Players Championship will get more points for their placements. Those who finish in 11th place and lower will get less. For Signature Events, a similar change is occurring. Those who finish in seventh place or worse will see fewer points. Unlike the other changes, this takes effect immediately in 2025.
3) Limited entry
In 2026, there will be fewer players coming into the Tour from the Korn Ferry Tour and other places. The DP World Tour just sent 10 players, and that number will not change. The Korn Ferry Tour can send players to the Tour as well, but the number is dropping from 30 to 20. Q-School graduates are limited to the top five only (not including ties) and there will be no more Monday qualifiers on many of the events.
2) Limited size
The Tour's overall size is also shrinking. Right now, the top 150 get conditional status. The top 125 have tour cards for the next season. After 2025, that won't be the case. The top 100 will have membership cards, and the top 125 will get conditional status. This change will drop the overall size of the tour by a wide margin, thus keeping more players on the outside than ever before.
1) Field size reduction
Almost every PGA Tour event with very few exceptions will be smaller in 2026. The field sizes for some are currently 156. The size of the field for 2026 and beyond will depend on how much daylight there is when the tournament is being held, with some fields being limited to just 120 players moving forward. Only the Charles Schwab Challenge, American Express, Procore Championship, World Wide Technology Championship and Butterfield Bermuda Championship will remain the same size.