We love talking about sponsor exemptions, especially for PGA Tour Signature Events. Brendan Porath and Joseph LaMagna penned a back-and-forth discussion about a certain fan-favorite player who appears to be receiving one for the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am next week.

Brendan Porath: Joseph, the first real “Signature Event” of the season is nigh. Torrey Pines will end tomorrow and we’ll flip to Pebble Beach Pro-Am week.

As a refresher, there are six (6) ways to earn a place into the lucrative upper crust that are Sig Events — Top 50 in last year’s FedEx (brand) Cup, AON(brand) Next 10, AON (brand) Swing 5, current-year tourney winners (needs a brand), members in the OWGR top 30, and … sponsor exemptions.

It’s this last category that came under further scrutiny in the first full year of Signature Events. It’s back again in 2025. The AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am will publish its full field list later today. Jordan Spieth is not otherwise qualified for this event. But he already “committed” to play it more than 10 days ago. Why? Well, obviously that last little “qualification” criteria, the sponsor exemption.

Joseph, the field is more interesting with Spieth in it. I’d also argue, in this very specific case, it is also better. He is very popular and, of course, a longtime endorser of the telecom (is this antiquated now) title sponsor. Is this, on its face, all that bad? I feel you are ready to make some sweeping and damning conclusions about it.

Joseph LaMagna: Ouch, Brendan. Calling me predictable?

Whatever, you’re right this time. Yes, this sponsor exemption, like all sponsor exemptions, is a complete farce. Putting aside the philosophical issue that handouts fundamentally compromise the notion of meritocracy, sponsor exemptions harm the PGA Tour’s product in a more direct way.

It isn’t lost on me that many people will lament the destruction of the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines, an iconic Tour venue featuring its weakest field in 30 years this week. Yet none of those people will then also criticize Jordan Spieth’s appearance at Pebble Beach. These issues relate back to one another.

One of the PGA Tour’s biggest challenges is building the right model that incentivizes players to participate in tournaments without mandating their participation. To that end, the Tour shifted from a leaky, 45-event schedule to a “Tour within a Tour” structure. Playing Signature Events is the carrot; to get into those events, you have to perform well in non-Signature Events, unless you’re already qualified for the Signatures. Spieth didn’t qualify for Signature Events in 2025 because he didn’t play well enough in 2024. The entire point of the Tour’s “new” model is that Spieth should then show up to the Farmers Insurance Open – or other non-Signature Events – and play his way into the Signature Events. That’s how the model is supposed to work.

Instead, he’s playing on a handout at Pebble Beach next week, free-rolling FedEx Cup points that contribute to his status next year on Tour while better, less marketable players sit on the bench. Sure, you can tell me that this field is more interesting with Spieth in it. I’m excited to watch Jordan attack Pebble, a golf course on which he’s been successful. But the Farmers Insurance Open field also would’ve benefitted tremendously from his participation, arguably much more than Pebble will. Nonetheless, Spieth is making his season debut on a sponsor exemption at Pebble Beach instead of earning his way into that field like (mostly) everybody else.

You’ve sort of articulated one of my biggest issues with the PGA Tour. Nothing, “on its face,” is “all that bad.” But when you step back and survey the pieces of the puzzle, the pieces don’t all fit together cohesively. You can justify a bunch of decisions that they make within a vacuum, but the product doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Nobody in a leadership position seems capable of seeing the forest for the trees.

Sponsor satisfaction should be the result of putting out a strong product; it’s not a goal to be achieved at the expense of the product. However, on the PGA Tour, the tail wags the dog. And I’m not sure how healthy the dog is, or how much more wagging the tails even want to do.

Brendan: Tails wagging dogs and the intractable cruise ship tend to be some of the most frequently used metaphors when we discuss the PGA Tour. That does not seem positive. Of course, I agree with the notion of sponsor exemptions being a complete farce for a Tour claiming meritocracy, especially in its recent efforts, intended or not, to create different competitive classes of events. The response is always one about it not having a huge impact on a specific field and the money guys being satiated by it.

You make a very compelling case for some of the larger, deep-seated problems with the Tour. But for something like this, they’re only operating with the space right in front of their cruise ship nose. That’s next week, and making Pebble better in a vacuum, not how it might be connected. The whole notion of a sponsor exemption was thought to be some quick barnacle you could attach to the cruise ship for the instant gratification of a sponsor that would not dramatically alter the course. But those short-term moves start to collect en masse over the years, and you might get disfigured.

Anyways, look over here: won’t Pebble be cool next week getting one of the most popular players of his generation after his longest-ever competitive layoff making a return to golf?


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