Explaining the Different Types of PGA Tour Tournaments

Opens, Invitationals, Limited Fields... I got you

Ever wonder how in the hell this guy or that guy got into a tournament? Sit back and relax and let’s see if I can give you enough to make you look brilliant the next time you visit the 19th hole and the guy whose ass you just kicked in your $2 Nassau says, “how did that loser get into the field, I could beat him.”

There are so many rules and regulations governing who gets into a PGA Tour event and who has PGA Tour status (i.e. has a PGA Tour Card) that I feel like the most natural place to start with an explanation is with a description of the types of tournaments that are held on the PGA Tour.

During the 2020-21 wrap around season the PGA Tour will sanction or co-sanction 50 tour events. In a “normal” year that number is more like 46-48. There are essentially three primary types of tournaments, each of which I am going to try and explain here.

Open Tournaments (sometimes also referred to as "Full Field" tournaments):
This is the most common type of tournament on tour. There are usually 28-30 of these throughout the season. The field sizes in open tournaments generally range from 132 to 156 players each. There are some select events (like the Zurich Classic Team Event in New Orleans - 160) which are outliers but the other tournaments all contain either 132, 144, or 156 players. That number depends almost entirely on the time of year the tournament is held, the location of the course, and how much daylight is available to get two full waves of players to compete during the first two rounds.

These tournaments are called Opens because literally anyone who qualifies (both amateur or professional) is allowed to compete. The key here is who "qualifies". In actuality most normal “open” PGA Tour events (i.e. the non Majors) only have 4 spots available, via a single round Monday qualifying tournament, to players who are not already exempt from qualifying. You've no doubt heard the term "exempt" or "exempt status" in reference to tour pros. That phrase basically means they are exempt from qualifying for open tournaments because they have some PGA Tour status that already got them into the field.

With the exception of the U.S. Open, which is co-sanctioned with the USGA, and the Open Championship, which is co-sanctioned with the R&A, all PGA Tour open tournaments are filled using the PGA Tour Priority Ranking List. The priority list contains Sponsor Exemptions (usually 8 for an open tournament) as well, so really the only thing "open" about these events is the fact that you can qualify through Monday qualifying. The U.S. Open (see U.S. Open Qualifying Criteria) and Open Championship (see Open Championship Qualifying Criteria) have their own rules for who and how many players qualify and by what means. They are technically "opens" but the method by which you get into those fields differs from normal PGA Tour open tournaments.

Invitational Tournaments
The PGA Tour currently allows 5 tournaments to hold the designation of "Invitational" tournament. In general, that status simply means that the tournament itself gets to determine who gets into the field in an order that is somewhat different from the standard PGA Tour Priority Ranking List.

Invitational tournaments typically have 120 player field sizes although the RBC Heritage presently selects 132 players.

At present, the Arnold Palmer Invitational, the Memorial, the Charles Schwab Challenge (Colonial for you old schoolers), the Genesis Invitational, and the RBC Heritage are the invitational tournaments on the PGA Tour schedule. This can change as sponsors and contracts change.

These tournaments have pre-selected qualification criteria which a lot of times resembles and in some cases partially mirrors the PGA Tour Priority Ranking List. The Arnold Palmer Invitational (18), the Memorial (14), and the Charles Schwab Challenge (12), all also have more than the standard number of sponsors exemptions for a normal tour event (6-8).

Limited Field Tournaments
The remaining tournaments on the PGA Tour schedule are Limited Field Tournaments. As the name implies, the fields for these tournaments are limited, both in terms of the field sizes or how those fields are determined, or both. There are usually no qualifiers (at least not in the sense of the Monday qualifier opens) and no sponsor exemptions. The CIMB Classic and CJ Cup @ Nine Bridges, though limited fields, do have some sponsor exemptions because they are co-sanctioned with the Asian Tour and Korean PGA and those tours want to showcase some of their regional talent.

The limitations can be the result of several different causes:
Sanctioning body/sponsor: The Masters is a limited field event because even though the tournament is a major, and is co-sanctioned by the PGA Tour, the Augusta National Golf Club gets to determine the field based on its own selected qualifying criteria. The PGA Championship (PGA of America) and the Players Championship (PGA Tour) also fall into this category, as do the CIMB Classic (co-sanctioned by the Asian Tour) and the CJ Cup @ Nine Bridges (co-sanctioned by the Korean PGA).

World Golf Championship Events: The WGC events are sanctioned by the International Federation of PGA Tours, of which the PGA Tour is a member. These events generally use some combination of the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR), and the various official ranking mechanisms of the member tours (e.g. Order of Merit, FedEx Cup List, Race to Dubai, money lists, etc.) to determine their fields.

FedEx Cup Playoffs: This one is easy to explain. Only the top 125, 70, or 30 players as determined by the FedEx Cup points list prior to each of those 3 events is allowed to play in the tournament.

Tournament of Champions: This is relatively obvious as well. Only players who have won a PGA Tour sanctioned official event in the last year are eligible to compete.

Every week the PGA Tour publishes an “Inside the Field” article that will show you exactly how each player made it in to any of their sanctioned events.

With those tournament descriptions out of the way we can now start unpacking how someone gets (or keeps) a PGA Tour Card and what all these exemptions, statuses, and priority rankings mean. More on that later.