‘That’s crazy’: Pro lays into PGA Tour Fall Series eligibility changes

In many parts of the country, fall golf provides some of the best conditions of the season, but there’s just one caveat: shorter days.

And, according to one veteran PGA Tour pro, those shorter days are having big consequences for the PGA Tour’s new FedEx Cup Fall Series.

In response to a tweet from Monday Q Info’s Ryan French, Dylan Wu explained that this week’s event, the Shriners Children’s Open, has fewer spots in the field since it’s one week later in the calendar and there’s less daylight. (The PGA Tour has yet to respond to GOLF.com’s request for comment.)

“The Shriners also decreased the field size by 12 spots because the Tour told them to,” Wu wrote. “The tournament is a week later so the day is 10 min shorter so that warrants 12 guys/members not being given a chance. Guys would gladly come back the next morning to finish one hole! 10 min!”

Last year, the PGA Tour played the Fortinet Championship, Presidents Cup and Sanderson Farms Championship in back-to-back-to-back weeks. However this year, with the slimming down of the fall schedule going from nine to seven events and the Ryder Cup being played a week later than the Presidents Cup, there was no event the week after the Fortinet and the Sanderson Farms, Shriners and Zozo Championship were all pushed back a week.

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The Zozo Championship will now be the same week as last year’s CJ Cup before the Tour takes another week off.

The change in schedule makes for 16 fewer minutes of daylight in Las Vegas on Thursday.

French’s initial tweet was about how both Wu and four-time PGA Tour winner Aaron Baddeley were not exempt into the field this week, despite both ranking in the top 100 in 2023’s FedEx Cup standings.

Instead of the fall events being the start of a wrap-around FedEx Cup season, as they had since 2013-14, the PGA Tour revamped the fall events after the Tour Championship into the FedEx Cup Fall and continued the points list from the past season.

That means unlike in the wrap-around season where the PGA Tour priority ranking reset after the Tour Championship, rewarding players who earned better status during the regular season, the priority ranking has carried over and won’t be reset until January and the start of the new FedEx Cup season.

Luckily, as Wu pointed out in his tweets, Wu finished 86th in the FedEx Cup standings and has moved up to 83rd in the FedEx Cup Fall standings based on his play in the first two events, making him a virtual lock to stay in the top 125 and keep his card. However, not everyone is as fortunate.

“If I was around that number and not getting into tournaments, that’s crazy,” Wu continued. “The fall should have went down the FedEx [Cup standings] to fill the field and lowered # of exemptions and qualifiers to protect its members!”

Wu also points out a scenario where he could have made it all the way to the Tour Championship, finished second, and still not been guaranteed starts in the fall.

“The answer usually to these problems is “play better.” Aaron Baddeley or I could have finished 2nd in the Tour championship if we somehow made it there without winning, and we still wouldn’t be guaranteed in the field for Shriners,” Wu Tweeted. “That’s crazy.”

All of the PGA Tour Priority Ranking categories that relate to the FedEx Cup standings are tied to the “prior year’s FedEx Cup points list” and not the current season. Winning a tournament would improve a player’s position on the ranking, but the only “Reorder category” that can reward players for good play in-season is just 34th out of the 39 categories.

For a player like Baddeley, who is playing the 2022-23 season out of the past champion category (No. 36 out of the 39 categories), he would have regained full-exempt status after the Tour Championship under the old structure.

However, with the change back to a calendar year schedule, all players outside the top 50 in the FedEx Cup standings are still jockeying for position for 2024. Additionally, spots in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and Genesis Invitational are up for grabs for the top 10 finishers in the Fall.

Wu and Baddeley are both in the field for next week’s Zozo Championship in Japan. The 78-man limited-field event is perhaps the strongest of the FedEx Cup fall, and instead of using the PGA Tour priority ranking, it takes the top 60 available players in the current FedEx Cup standings.

With just five players in the top 20 in the FedEx Cup standings — just three are in the field this week — making the trip to Japan next week, Baddeley and Wu easily made the field.

At the end of the day, however, whether the changes are fair or not, Wu knows exactly what he needs to do to make them irrelevant.

“But the goal is to continue to play better so I don’t have to experience these problems ever again,” he tweeted. “That will still always be the answer to everything in professional golf. Just play better.”