Once upon a time, the PGA Tour and its developmental circuits were a true meritocracy. If you played well enough, including (but not limited to) winning tournaments, you would move up the hierarchy of exemption categories. If you faltered as a member, you would move down. It was a beautiful (if informal) system of promotion and relegation that made the Tour great and its players greater, regardless of where they came from or how they got to where they got.

But according to a blog post by Ryan French of Monday Q Info, who has been very credible as to lesser-known developments in tour golf, big and ugly changes could be in store for the Tour's exemption hierarchy and methods of qualification. The fields on tour, which have often featured as many as 156 or more golfers, would be cut to a maximum of 144 and even as few as 120. The only events not affected would be signature events, which are bad enough for often featuring fewer than seventy golfers! Worse, the proposal calls for reducing the number of cards based on the FedEx Cup standings to 100 (from a current total of 125). Moreover, instead of thirty Korn Ferry Tour graduates annually, only twenty would graduate every year. There would also be two fewer sponsor's exemptions and only two open-qualifying spots per regular event (down from four). Both sponsor's exemptions and open qualifying are valuable ways for nonmembers to access PGA Tour events and perhaps earn membership as a result of their own merits.

The excuse offered up, according to French, is the need to enforce pace of play. If that were the case, why not reintroduce the secondary cut after 54 holes? This proposal would do nothing to bring back fans who turned against men's tour golf in light of golf's civil war and will only fuel LIV Golf's claims of PGA Tour hypocrisy. It also would compromise the livelihood of many rank and file golfers by reducing their status. Lastly, it would cut off many qualified young golfers who, in past years, would have been gladly accepted onto the PGA Tour.

We demand that the PGA Tour's voting members firmly and decisively reject this abusive policy. If they do, perhaps golf's internal wounds will begin to heal more quickly. If not, we may never witness the next unlikely star in our midst.

Edward Genereux

Founder of The Devilish Rake