Will the PGA Tour turn players back into ‘rabbit’ qualifiers? It seems likely

Back in the 1970s and the early 1980s, a full exemption for the PGA Tour meant a player had finished in the top 60 of the money winners the previous year. Not the top 125 as it is today, but just the top 60.

That meant a player who was, say, 70th on the money list one year would spend the following year chasing qualifying tournaments – like a rabbit, they used to say – just to get in tournaments week to week.

Then came 1983 and what has since been called the all-exempt tour. The number of full exemptions for the next year more than doubled, and the chances for rabbits to qualify on a weekly basis was drastically reduced.

That’s been the way the PGA Tour has filled its fields for the most part for more than 40 years. But if you believe the talk and even words from a player on the PGA Tour’s Player Advisory Board, changes might be coming to the all-exempt tour and events like The American Express event in La Quinta as early as 2026.

Websites like Monday Q, which tracks Monday qualifying events for various tours among other things, have been talking about changes being considered by the tour. Then last week, a letter from Camilo Villegas, the chairman of the PAC, to tour players confirmed that the tour has been engaged in talks that could send the tour back to the days of rabbit qualifying, though not all the way back to a 60-player exempt list.

Here’s a look at what are believed to be the proposals and how they might impact events like The American Express:

Fewer exemptions

Details are sketchy, but the gist of this is to have fewer fully exempt players both on the PGA Tour and coming to the tour from the Korn Ferry development circuit. Likely the exemption list will shrink from 125 on the FedEx Cup points list to something like 90 or 100 players. On the surface, that doesn’t change much at The American Express, which is a tournament that relies on younger players or recent graduates from the Korn Ferry Tour to fill its field. But a reduction in the number of cards handed out to Korn Ferry players is also apparently on the table, and that could mean fewer available players there.

“We look to redefine what it means to have a PGA Tour ‘card’ and when you earn that card, how that translates to certainty of schedule,” Villegas said in his letter to players.

The simple translation here is that younger players will have a tougher time making it to the tour for the first time and then have a tougher time staying on tour. There will be other exemptions, of course, for winning tournaments. This all could lead to greater competition and drama to make the new exempt number, but it could slow the progress of some younger potential stars.

Smaller tournament fields

This is where it could get tricky for tournaments like The American Express. Currently, the La Quinta tournament has a field of 156, a number that has existed since 2012 when the tournament jumped from 128 players, a number it had been on for six decades. So if the PGA Tour decides its field starting in 2026 will be closer to 120 players, it wouldn’t be a huge shift for The American Express. What would be a change is that 156 pro players means 156 amateur players paying big money to play with another amateur and two pros in a foursome for the first three days of the event. If that number was reduced, even to the old 128-player field, it could mean a decrease in revenues for the tournament, money that would have to be made somewhere else to maintain current levels of charity distributions.

Villegas’ letter says this is about pace of play and determining the right number of golfers to keep play flowing and finishing tournaments on time. That’s something everyone would like. But again, the proposal could make things much tougher for journeymen players and younger players to get a shot at tournament berths, something that is already tough enough for players with limited exemptions or fresh from the Korn Ferry Tour.

A refined points system

No one knows just what this means, but Villegas’ letter indicates the distribution of FedEx Cup points could make the middle of the pack “more equitable based on performance.” Could this mean that fewer players will get points in tournaments, but players who earn points could get more points to balance out the FedEx Cup playoffs?

Certainly, the all-exempt tour has done things for the PGA Tour that weren’t happening when the exempt list only went to 60. The current tour is more stable and has more stars and more players who can win a tournament any given week that was true in the 1970s or early 1980s.

The drama of players chasing exemptions is evident in the fall events on the PGA Tour the last few weeks. Fewer exemptions for the big tour might bring a little more of that drama to the PGA Tour week to week. But the tour has to be careful when it to comes to reducing the size of fields or reducing the number of Korn Ferry players who gain PGA Tour status. Cutting down the lanes for new players and new blood to get to the tour can’t be a good thing, especially with the LIV Tour waiting for new blood itself.

Larry Bohannan is the golf writer for The Desert Sun. You can contact him at (760) 778-4633 or at larry.bohannan@desertsun.com. Follow him on Facebook or on Twitter at @larry_bohannan.