Party Favors at the Zozo Championship

Some day, it will be universally acknowledged that PGA Tour sponsor exemptions were plain-sight evidence of a flawed business model. While it’s understandable that companies sponsoring the Tour derive value from playing alongside a professional golfer in a Wednesday Pro-Am, extending that to handpicking competitors for the actual tournaments themselves betrays everything the Tour should represent: meritocracy.

This week, we have a particularly egregious use case of sponsor exemptions. With just four weeks remaining in the FedEx Cup Fall, the PGA Tour heads to Chiba, Japan for the Zozo Championship – a no-cut, limited-field event. Every player in the field will earn FedEx Cup points simply for showing up, except the Japan Golf Tour members who are ineligible to earn FedEx Cup points. Two of the four sponsor exemptions are going to Gary Woodland and Joel Dahmen, players teetering on the edge of the crucial Top 125 ranking in the FedEx Cup standings, while other players in similar positions are left as alternates.

What are we doing here? Why do Gary Woodland (137th in the standings) and Joel Dahmen (129th) get handpicked as sponsor exemptions while someone like Pierceson Coody (130th) sits on the sidelines? Because Woodland and Dahmen have bigger brands? The sponsor’s relationship with an agent? A strong performance from either Woodland or Dahmen could very plausibly be the difference between having status on Tour next year and not. That’s ridiculous. Careers are on the line here. Sponsor exemptions shouldn’t exist at all, but they definitely shouldn’t alter the trajectory of players’ futures.

As the Strategic Sports Group evaluates every part of the Tour’s business, sponsor exemptions deserve serious scrutiny. As long as the pathways to the top tier of the PGA Tour are functional and allow players to battle their way up the ranks, sponsor exemptions are not only unnecessary, they actively compromise the meritocracy the Tour is supposed to represent.

This piece originally appeared in the Fried Egg Golf newsletter. Subscribe for free and receive golf news and insight every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.