Robert Garrigus didn’t hold back when the PGA Tour announced its latest change. The one-time Tour winner, with 384 career starts under his belt, took a direct jab at Jordan Spieth, saying, “So, does that mean one more sponsor invite for Jordan Spieth? Tell Spieth I’ll play him for any amount he wants. I win, I get his five invites to the Signature events.”

It wasn’t just a throwaway dig. Garrigus’s frustration came from years of watching the same pattern play out — players like Spieth, despite slumping form, continuing to receive sponsor exemptions into the Tour’s biggest events while struggling players are left out.

He was with James Hahn when the latter received a call from Golfweek about the Tour’s newest Signature stop, the Miami Championship, a $20 million event slated for Trump National Doral in 2026. Hahn laughed at the news, calling it a joke, but Garrigus was dead serious. His question — “What is happening to our Tour?” — summed up the growing resentment in locker rooms across the PGA.

For Garrigus, who has barely had a chance to tee it up this season — just one start at the Farmers Insurance Open, where he missed the cut after rounds of 73 and 81 — the inequality hits home. His last full season on Tour came back in 2018. The American’s performance in past seasons has led to a conditional status for him on the PGA Tour. It means he is not guaranteed to enter every tournament, unlike players who slide through contentions or through sponsors’ exemptions.

And at the heart of his complaint sits Jordan Spieth. Once golf’s golden child, Spieth hasn’t exactly been lighting it up. His last win came back in 2022 at the RBC Heritage, and his last major goes all the way back to the 2017 Open Championship. Add in a nagging wrist injury that’s forced him to tweak his game, and the three-time major winner has not been able to fix his winless drought. Yet somehow, he still landed five sponsor exemptions into Signature Events this season — including Pebble Beach, Genesis, the Memorial, RBC Heritage, and the Truist Championship.

For a decorated player like Spieth, the passes may seem harmless. But for guys like Garrigus, fighting just to keep a career alive, those exemptions feel like opportunities stolen. And he isn’t alone in saying so. Lucas Glover has also voiced his concern, warning that the Tour’s direction risks creating a “two-tiered system,” where a select few enjoy guaranteed access to the richest purses while everyone else scraps for crumbs. As Glover bluntly put it: “I don’t like the idea at all. It’s selfish, and it’s a money grab.”

Spieth’s take on the exemptions, on the other hand, hasn’t exactly helped his career either. After missing out on this year’s Arnold Palmer Invitational, he said he wished he’d played “better injured golf” the previous season. “It’s been a great, great place for me, and I really wish I was getting that start, but I needed to play better injured golf last year, I guess.” He has some history at Bay Hill with a pair of T-4 finishes, but his other sponsor exemptions this season haven’t translated into strong results. He’s had a T69 at Pebble Beach and a missed cut at Genesis.

And while Spieth’s sponsors’ exemptions do raise some eyebrows, he isn’t the only beneficiary.

Rickie Fowler is another case of a sponsor’s exemptions

Rickie Fowler‘s heavy reliance on sponsor exemptions in 2025 became one of the season’s biggest talking points. Despite missing the Top 50 in the 2024 FedExCup standings, he received exemptions into six of the eight Sig Events. Nearly half of the FedExCup points he collected that year came from those starts, which proved pivotal in lifting him to 48th in the rankings and securing his spot in all 2026 Signature Events. His exemption reinforces the idea that exemptions favor popularity and marketability over performance, blurring the lines between merit and privilege on the PGA Tour.

An instance of this contrast can be seen with Chris Kirk. Unlike Fowler, Kirk played his way into contention the hard way, making a late push at the Wyndham Championship to secure a playoff berth and then fighting through the FedEx St. Jude. His efforts, however, left him at 51st in the standings — just one spot shy of qualifying for the BMW Championship, where only the Top 50 advance. The juxtaposition highlights why sponsor exemptions remain such a contentious issue.

But here’s the thing, both Fowler and Spieth keep landing sponsor exemptions for a reason. Sponsors pour tens of millions into these Signature events, and part of that investment is having the freedom to invite players who actually move the needle. Fowler, for instance, still draws crowds. A recent poll done on our flagship newsletter, Essentially Golf, showed that nearly 68% of fans back his invites. Same for Spieth – nearly 70% of our readers said he deserves his exemptions. The reasoning of these fans mirrors that of sponsors: both these players are a draw. They pack stands, boost TV ratings, and still produce the kind of explosive golf that keeps fans hooked.

Sometimes, it’s less about favoritism and more about the balance between commercial value and on-course potential.