Newer things are in store for the PGA Tour. The 2026 season will see massive changes. The major change is the reduced field of 100, an overhaul that saw bubble golfers scrambling hard in the season-ending fall events. It won’t be entirely wrong to say that the new CEO, Brian Rolapp, has brought these changes, keeping LIV Golf in mind. But the main question is: are these transitions headed in the right direction? We will find out next year. But till then, it’s Brandel Chamblee‘s warning that one needs to heed.

Promoting his new episode of the Favorite Chamblee’s podcast, the golf analyst went on to detail everything he believes is a PGA Tour misstep.

“I would argue that with the PGA Tour reducing the number of exempt players and apparently headed towards a schedule that emphasizes scarcity over ubiquity, it risks looking more like LIV than differentiating itself from it,” he wrote.

LIV Golf has 52 golfers who compete in each event. And starting in 2026, the PGA Tour will reduce its field to 100 golfers, down from 125. For Chamblee, the central point is rather simple. Every previous Tour commissioner has expanded the playing field because the PGA Tour, by charter, is a players’ organization.

Professional golf is likely the only sport where the gap between the best golfer and the one sitting in 150th position could be razor-thin. How? Take Chris Gotterup‘s win over Rory McIlroy in the Genesis Scottish Open. The American was placed at 158th in the OWGR, while McIlroy was the second-best golfer in the world. Yes, they might struggle financially. But their actual playing ability relative to the #1 golfer is far closer than, say, a backup NFL quarterback to Tom Brady.

“[It] is a rounding error, and in every other sport it is a chasm,” Chamblee reminded his followers.

So when the PGA Tour decides to limit its field, it risks this competitive edge, believes Brandel Chamblee. This shift by Rolapp emanates from his time back in the NFL. There, having fewer games raised the stakes. His vision sees a reduction in golfers, as well as tournaments on the calendar, which will force the top ones into the same events more often. It will give each tournament more weight. Ultimately, the broadcast value will increase. His roping in ex-NFL employees is another step in that direction.

“At the very time the PGA Tour should be expanding, it is constricting, becoming less about accessibility and more [about] exclusivity, which undermines its goals of being all about meritocracy,” Chamblee opines.

This meritocracy has allowed fringe golfers to get a pathway into the PGA Tour. A golfer on the Korn Ferry Tour could play an event. Or one who had not qualified previously could do so with the Monday qualifiers. But, as per Brandel Chamblee, a “players’ organization” shrinking its own player pipeline is a philosophical contradiction.

The reason Chamblee wrote at length is likely because he was teasing the new podcast episode. Gary McCord, long-time PGA Tour golfer and author, will be a guest on his podcast show. How does he fit into this narrative?

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How Gary McCord built the PGA Tour’s meritocracy

Gary McCord is the very architect of the golfer-centered system that the PGA Tour is now preparing to roll back. Back in the ’80s, McCord conducted an uprising that aimed to fix a system he believed was “fundamentally broken.” During the 1981 Doral Open, he saw that several PGA Tour winners, like Miller Barber and Frank Beard, were competing for the Monday qualifier spots.

This opens a rabbit hole for him to jump. With a degree in economics, McCord soon found out that 76 percent of PGA Tour competitors could not sustain themselves financially from their prize earnings. Playing golf for them was merely a job. Hence, he went to all the labor unions on the tour.

He posted flyers on the practice range, invited tour golfers for a meeting, and pitched his goal. Around 105 attended. They agreed on a proposal that called for expanding the exempt status from 60 to at least 140. Eventually, this proposal was presented in front of the then-PGA Tour commissioner Deane Beman.

Beman agreed, and the entire initiative was handed over to McCord. The result became evident in 1983 as golf saw an expanded field of 125. The golfers advocated for 170 at first, but a compromise was made by the board, and the current number was set. The same number that will see an end in a span of a month.