PGA Tour professional Dylan Wu laid into the PGA Tour’s Fall Series eligibility modifications on Twitter on Tuesday, calling one transfer “crazy.”
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In many components of the nation, fall golf supplies a few of the finest situations of the season, however there’s only one caveat: shorter days.
And, in response to one veteran PGA Tour professional, these shorter days are having massive penalties for the PGA Tour’s new FedEx Cup Fall Series.
In response to a tweet from Monday Q Info’s Ryan French, Dylan Wu defined that this week’s occasion, the Shriners Children’s Open, has fewer spots within the discipline because it’s one week later within the calendar and there’s much less daylight. (The PGA Tour has but to answer GOLF.com’s request for remark.)
“The Shriners also decreased the field size by 12 spots because the Tour told them to,” Wu wrote. “The tournament is a week later so the day is 10 min shorter so that warrants 12 guys/members not being given a chance. Guys would gladly come back the next morning to finish one hole! 10 min!”
Last 12 months, the PGA Tour performed the Fortinet Championship, Presidents Cup and Sanderson Farms Championship in back-to-back-to-back weeks. However this 12 months, with the slimming down of the autumn schedule going from 9 to seven occasions and the Ryder Cup being performed per week later than the Presidents Cup, there was no occasion the week after the Fortinet and the Sanderson Farms, Shriners and Zozo Championship have been all pushed again per week.
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The Zozo Championship will now be the identical week as final 12 months’s CJ Cup earlier than the Tour takes one other week off.
The change in schedule makes for 16 fewer minutes of daylight in Las Vegas on Thursday.
French’s preliminary tweet was about how each Wu and four-time PGA Tour winner Aaron Baddeley weren’t exempt into the sphere this week, regardless of each rating within the prime 100 in 2023’s FedEx Cup standings.
Instead of the autumn occasions being the beginning of a wrap-around FedEx Cup season, as that they had since 2013-14, the PGA Tour revamped the autumn occasions after the Tour Championship into the FedEx Cup Fall and continued the factors checklist from the previous season.
That means in contrast to within the wrap-around season the place the PGA Tour precedence rating reset after the Tour Championship, rewarding gamers who earned higher standing throughout the common season, the precedence rating has carried over and gained’t be reset till January and the beginning of the brand new FedEx Cup season.
Luckily, as Wu identified in his tweets, Wu completed 86th within the FedEx Cup standings and has moved as much as 83rd within the FedEx Cup Fall standings based mostly on his play within the first two occasions, making him a digital lock to remain within the prime 125 and hold his card. However, not everyone seems to be as lucky.
“If I was around that number and not getting into tournaments, that’s crazy,” Wu continued. “The fall should have went down the FedEx [Cup standings] to fill the field and lowered # of exemptions and qualifiers to protect its members!”
Wu additionally factors out a situation the place he may have made all of it the way in which to the Tour Championship, completed second, and nonetheless not been assured begins within the fall.
“The answer usually to these problems is “play better.” Aaron Baddeley or I may have completed 2nd within the Tour championship if we one way or the other made it there with out successful, and we nonetheless wouldn’t be assured within the discipline for Shriners,” Wu Tweeted. “That’s crazy.”
All of the PGA Tour Priority Ranking classes that relate to the FedEx Cup standings are tied to the “prior year’s FedEx Cup points list” and never the present season. Winning a event would enhance a participant’s place on the rating, however the one “Reorder category” that may reward gamers for good play in-season is simply thirty fourth out of the 39 classes.
For a participant like Baddeley, who’s enjoying the 2022-23 season out of the previous champion class (No. 36 out of the 39 classes), he would have regained full-exempt standing after the Tour Championship below the previous construction.
However, with the change again to a calendar 12 months schedule, all gamers outdoors the highest 50 within the FedEx Cup standings are nonetheless jockeying for place for 2024. Additionally, spots within the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and Genesis Invitational are up for grabs for the highest 10 finishers within the Fall.
Wu and Baddeley are each within the discipline for subsequent week’s Zozo Championship in Japan. The 78-man limited-field occasion is maybe the strongest of the FedEx Cup fall, and as an alternative of utilizing the PGA Tour precedence rating, it takes the highest 60 out there gamers within the present FedEx Cup standings.
With simply 5 gamers within the prime 20 within the FedEx Cup standings — simply two are within the discipline this week — making the journey to Japan subsequent week, Baddeley and Wu simply made the sphere.
At the top of the day, nonetheless, whether or not the modifications are truthful or not, Wu is aware of precisely what he must do to make them irrelevant.
“But the goal is to continue to play better so I don’t have to experience these problems ever again,” he tweeted. “That will still always be the answer to everything in professional golf. Just play better.”
