The PGA Tour Champions may be the most difficult professional golf circuit to gain entry into and one of the more difficult to stay on.
Featuring fields of 78 for most weeks, the tour only brings back the top 36 golfers from the previous season. The season finale every year is the Charles Schwab Cup Championship, the final leg of a three-tournament postseason. Only the top 36 advance to that but the side benefit of reaching Phoenix Country Club is regaining status for the next season.
“This has gotta be the hardest, tightest tour to keep your card on in the world. Thirty-six guys keep their card and even if you win, you only get a one-year exemption,” Padraig Harrington, in his third year on the tour, said about six weeks ago.
The PGA Tour, by comparison, is returning the top 125 from its 2024 points race. The DP World Tour will retain 110 from this season. The Korn Ferry Tour had 75 guys returning in 2025.
Even victory brings a different level of perks. A win on the PGA Tour is a two-year exemption. On the PGA Tour Champions, a winner is exempt for the rest of the current season and all of the next. Clearly, a win early in the season is much more valuable.
In addition, just five golfers from Q School in 2024 will earn a card for 2025.
Last year’s Q school winner, Cameron Percy, finished in the 36th and final spot in the Schwab standings and will return with a card next season. Jason Caron played in just 10 events in 2024 but he also reached the final 36 to also earn a tour card.
“I’m seeing my friends, at the start I didn’t know but now I know and I’m seeing people I’m playing with and they’ve had a good year and then the following year they’ve just played average, average. And they’re gone,” Harrington said. “And some of them will never get a second chance. It’s really cut-throat. Thirty-six to keep your card is very, very tight.”
“This has to be the hardest tour to keep your card in the world.”@Padraig_H explains his hot take @DECCGolf. pic.twitter.com/toWERhRDzc
— PGA TOUR Champions (@ChampionsTour) October 17, 2024
The three First Stage events at Champions Q school are in the books. Now it’s on to the final stage, Dec. 3-6 at TPC Scottsdale’s Champions Course, where there are 78 hopefuls in the field.
