Assuming he doesn’t win the PGA this week: How poorly would he have to play in 2014 to need to return to Q school?
Assuming this is a serious question, there is zero chance Tiger would have to go to Q School for the next five years even if he never made a cut in that time. He has a five year exemption for winning the Players Championship this year.
Forgot he won the Players. (and yes it was a serious question :rolleyes:) If he hadn’t won the Players, would he be in danger, or does he have a recent enough major to keep out of “Q” school?
A PGA Tour Player earns a lifetime exemption after 20 PGA Tour wins.
There are four active players who have 20 or more wins, Tiger, Phil Mickelson, Vijay Singh, and Davis Love.
Ernie Els is one win away at 19 wins.
Interesting to know that players that won the US Open and PGA Championship prior to 1970 have lifetime exemptions on Tour. That means a player like Jackie Burke and Bobby Nichols, who were basically journeyman players in their prime, have lifetime exemptions. And are atop of the Pecking order.
There was a case about 20 years ago when Jerry Barber, who was in his mid 70’s, who had lost all his exemptions on the Senior Tour, entered PGA Tournaments. He had won the 1961 PGA Championship and therefore had a lifetime exemption.
The list of PGAT exempt players can be found here. Lifetime exemptions are noted in 17.
Thanks mensa! Didn’t know a certain win total did it. I thought it was only recent Slam winners.
That exempt list is interesting. I’m a bit surprised to see Mike Weir in the top 25 on the all-time money list (#20), but I guess it makes sense.
Yes, a very interesting list. When I read a bit about life on the tour, it became pretty clear that keeping your card/getting exemptions was the big deal.
I always find the all-time money lists somewhat depressing - seeing how low the greats from my youth are, with a bunch of journeymen in the top 50.
The fact is Tiger is still the big name in golf, he’d probably be able to get sponsor exemptions for most tournaments…Not to mention that he is currently the number 1 ranked golfer in the world and in no current danger of his game slipping that much.
True. Although for this reason, the Top 25 all-time exemption that Weir is using this year is probably working as it was intended. To use it, you’d have to be a player who’s done quite well fairly recently.
It’s too bad that players aren’t listed in all the categories they meet. I always like the Masters qualification list, where guys like Tiger & Phil qualify a bunch of different ways.
There is no more Q school. Now players without PGA cards have to play their way on through the Web.com tour.
So, it’s implicit 
he would’ve been in danger of going to the web.com Tour?
It’s a little more complicated than that:
As soon as the regular FedEx season ends for the PGA, the players ranked 126-200 on the money/points list* join the top 75 players from the Web.com tour** for a three-game tournament. The top 50 from that tourney get PGA Tour cards for the next FedEx season (which now starts in October).***
- That aren’t otherwise qualified (per the list posted above).
** As do any college-turned-pro players whose “equivalent earnings” would have put them in either the Top 200 (PGA) or Top 75 (Web.com)
*** The Top 25 from the Web.com tour automatically get cards so there’s actually only 25 cards up for grabs (IOW, if all 75 PGA players had to play in, at least 50 of them would be guaranteed to drop to the Web.com tour).
Another seemingly dumb question leads to a fairly interesting discussion. I love this place. 
Thanks for the link, notfrommensa; it was fascinating to see the hierarchy for the first time. I guess this raises another question; once Tiger’s major exemptions run out (which they will pretty soon), how far down the ladder does he drop?
Not far. The PGA and the Masters give former winners lifetime exemptions and the British is good until he turns 60. As for the US Open, he’d have to not win any more majors (5 year exemptions for winners of the Masters, British, and PGA and 10 years for the US Open) and fall out of the world top 60.