2025 was a great season for the PGA Tour. The golf world saw Rory McIlroy complete his career Grand Slam, Scottie Scheffler win two majors after critics said he would have a dry year, and JJ Spaun’s US Open underdog win. The season, as reported by CBS, was the most-watched golf season in seven years, while NBC experienced six consecutive weekends of year-over-year ratings growth. Yet, there were some challenges, and a major one was the shrinking field sizes.

But there are fixes for these two, as proposed by Johnson Wagner. Wagner, a former PGA Tour professional, suggested certain radical fixes that are aimed at addressing the structural changes head-on.

In a conversation with Trey Wingo, Wagner outlined his vision for what he called the “100-Man Tour,” a complete remaginig of the PGA Tour. “I’m not a fan of 100 men as opposed to 125 keeping their cards. I’m not a fan of shrinking field sizes and decreasing opportunities because one thing the PGA Tour does so well that LIV doesn’t is that it creates stars. On the PGA Tour, when you play and win at a heavy clip, you become a star. The more we shrink this, the harder it is for rookies to even keep their jobs the next year,” he said.

Wagner believes that if such things are not taken into consideration, the PGA Tour will lose out to its rival, LIV Golf. So what can be done? Under his plan, every PGA Tour event would feature exactly 100 players. Sponsor exemptions would be eliminated, and all top cardholders would be guaranteed entry into every tournament. This will be different from the already decided 100-player cap by the PGA Tour.

Then he suggests something for the main Tour. As per Wagner, it would consist of a 20-week regular season, which would culminate in the major championships, with purses concentrated among a few so that the stakes are high. For earning the PGA Tour card, he prroitizes merit and turnover.

As per his suggestion, the top 70 finishers from the previous season would retain their cards, 15 cards to go to Korn Ferry Tour graduates, and 15 would come from the DP World Tour. Whatever will be left will be determined through Q-School.

But where Wagner’s concept becomes particularly transformative is his approach to the Korn Fetty Tour. He proposes merging low-end PGA Tour events with high-end KFT events to create a “much bigger platform” for developing talent. Wanger calls it “PGA Tour Light.” He suggests that more broadcasting attention should be given to KFT events by media like the Golf Channel. Now this will help in attracting high-profile names who may not have kept their PGA Tour cards.

“I’d like to see low-end PGA Tour events and high-end Korn Ferry events come together to create a bigger platform. Golf Channel could televise more of those events.”

A central philosophy driving Wagner’s proposal is what he calls the “scarcity model.” He argues that golf currently suffers from oversaturation, with tournaments nearly every week. “It may be nice for the golf fan to miss the sport for a while,” Wagner told Wingo. “The PGA Tour plays so many weeks that the fan never has the opportunity to be like, man, I wish there was a golf tournament this weekend because there’s a tournament every single weekend.” 

But his suggestions are not limited just to the structure of the Tour. Players, too, as per his plan, deserve better.

Wagner’s concern for rookie players

Player development is a huge part of Johnson Wagner’s thinking. He’s been clear that the current system is tough on rookies and young stars. With fully exempt PGA Tour cards dropping from 125 to 100 in 2026, he worries the Tour could turn into a “closed shop,” making it really hard for the next gen to break through. “It’s so hard to get to the PGA Tour, much less keep your job out there,” he tells Trey Wingo.

“I’m leery of it becoming a closed shop and not creating a new breed of superstars like we might see with Luke Clanton and Jackson Koivun, and other players coming out of college.”

He brings in the media perspective and says that his major is more players turning pro and trying to play pro golf. But the problem is that spots are shrinking, which makes it eventually harder to reach the top of the game.

As Brian Rolapp assumes the role of PGA Tour CEO, drawing on his NFL experience to modernize the Tour, proposals like Wagner’s will likely influence the direction of golf in the coming years.