Imago
Composition of silhouette of male golf player over landscape and blue sky with copy space. sport and competition concept digitally generated image. Copyright: xx 1451962
Imago
Composition of silhouette of male golf player over landscape and blue sky with copy space. sport and competition concept digitally generated image. Copyright: xx 1451962
The effect of reduced field size is finally starting to show. Back in October 2024, Jay Monahan & Co. proposed to cut down the field to improve the PGA Tour from 2026 onwards. There was a lot of resistance against the strategy, but the Tour still went through with it. And now Ryan Moore is getting a firsthand experience of the drawbacks of it.
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Speaking to Golfweek, Moore said, “None of us know. Even the Tour doesn’t know at this point. They have no idea what they’re doing. They keep saying a lot of things that turn out to be very wrong. If you go back three or four years ago with the exact same status, I would have played in at least 12 tournaments, maybe as much as 14-15, with fall [events] and with opposites and all that kind of stuff. But certainly a solid 12, and I think I got in four last year.”
While the new rules hadn’t come into play last season, Moore also didn’t make the cut to return to the PGA Tour. He endured a tough 2024 season that ended with a 146th-place finish on the FedEx Cup leaderboard. His position got worse in the Fall as he dropped down to 151st. That, combined with the Tour making events less accessible, ensured that Moore only played one tournament in 2025, the Procore Championship. He essentially didn’t get any advantage as a former champion, and that upset him.
“Everything they were telling us was that the past champions and those types of status should theoretically have been better this year because there’s less people with cards. I think missing through this whole process is they’ve taken away so many spots [in fields] that people that do have status have to play every tournament. There’s no like, ‘Well, I’ll just take the week off.’ People just have to play way more because they’ve taken away so much.”
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With the field size cut short and fewer memberships handed to pros, every event is cut thin to the very end. Fans witnessed that in the 2026 Farmers Insurance Open last week, when a lot of withdrawals led to the organizers being forced to use eight alternates to join the field. A few more withdrawals, and the event would have run out of substitute players as well.
Ryan Moore: PGA Tour has 'no idea what they're doing' with membership https://t.co/PJPqWImLhE
— Golfweek (@golfweek) February 4, 2026
Moore believes a lot has changed in the Tour recently. His views aligned with those of one of his peers, who was also left frustrated.
Ryan Moore and Kevin Vu sing the same song when it comes to the new PGA Tour policy
Missing out on playing on the PGA Tour has certainly left Ryan Moore quite frustrated. Despite being a five-time champion, he has not been recognized by Brian Rolapp & Co.
“You don’t get anything, and that’s so different for me. I feel like the first 10 years I was on Tour they appreciated people in my position who had been there, done that. They did everything to kind of create some playing opportunity for past champions; they appreciated that player a lot more.”
“Now they’re like, ‘What have you done for me lately? Please go away. Go away as fast as you can. You mean nothing to us.’ Like, that’s how I feel…My issue with everything they’ve done is they just throw everything out there, claim there’s a trickle down, but it doesn’t trickle down past 20 players. Everything the Tour is doing is working against you, and you feel like you’re beating your head against the wall.”
Interestingly, Dylan Vu also had similar views about the issue when he saw the field for the WM Phoenix Open.
He agreed with Ron Klos’ statement when the latter said, “I’m sorry, but there is no world where Lee Hodges, who has eight top-11 finishes in the last 15 months, should be 10th alternate behind the likes of Pontus Nyholm, A.J. Ewart, and Marcelo Rozo.”
Both Moore and Vu agree that experience on the PGA Tour and the status earned over time should be respected. But Rolapp and his team are solely focusing on performance-driven reward systems. As it has just been implemented, we will have to wait and see if the new ways are better.