With the PGA Tour cards, the 2024 season is entering its final phase

Fall golf is not your top priority. You know it. I know it. The PGA Tour understands that and respects it. There’s football, playoff baseball and now the start of hockey and basketball seasons.

It’s okay that you didn’t see the entertaining end to Sunday in Japan, when Nico Echavarria birdied two of the final three holes and defeated Justin Thomas in the battle for the ZOZO Championship. It’s okay if you don’t exactly know the name Matt McCarty after his win in Utah or know that JT Poston finally won in Las Vegas this month.

The storylines among golf’s top names aren’t decided in the fall season, and even those who compete in events don’t win them. But a smart and interesting change in the way the PGA Tour now structures its seasons is that it is using the fall to prepare for 2025. Players compete for tour tickets. Others hope to qualify for the 2025 signature events and the big cash payouts that come with them.

Here’s a quick rundown of what stood out to us most this fall and which battles to keep an eye on from the last three events:

The card drama of the PGA Tour

A really important conversation happening beneath the surface in golf is the use of sponsor exemptions. There is no right or wrong answer, as tournament directors and sponsors certainly have the right to invite whoever they want in order to attract fans and put on the best event possible, but anger increased this year when PGA Tour policy committee members like Webb Simpson, Adam Scott and Peter Malnati repeatedly received exemptions for signature events for which they would otherwise not have qualified. And the strange thing about it? They largely justified their existence. Scott finished the season with a heat and was one of the best players in the world this summer. Shane Lowry made it into the top 30 of the season despite exemptions. Despite all the criticism, Malnati won the Valspar championship. It hasn’t changed the questionable appearance.

But as the battle for the final spots in the FedEx Cup Fall Top 125, which earns players PGA Tour cards, heats up, the exceptions are becoming more controversial.

Like the ZOZO, a limited-entry, no-cut event where everyone gets points just for showing up in Japan, with exceptions being granted by Joel Dahmen and Gary Woodland. They are two popular players with fascinating stories. It makes perfect sense for sponsors to have them at their event. The problem? It was numbers 129 and 137 respectively that went in.

In return, Dahmen finished T41 and jumped from 127 to 124, currently putting him within reach of keeping his card. Woodland placed T33 and is now at 135. Good for them. They are two likeable guys that the golf world would like to keep in its cards. Dahmen was incredibly transparent in Netflix’s Full Swing documentaries and Woodland, a former US Open champion, underwent brain surgery for a tumor a year ago and is now scoring back-to-back top 20 finishes in Jackson and Vegas. Hopefully they win their spots convincingly in the next few weeks and it doesn’t matter. It simply doesn’t change the question of whether the potential difference in tour tickets – and living expenses – depends on points earned at events they didn’t qualify for.

For example, the next man out after Dahmen jumps forward? Joe Highsmith, a truly talented 24-year-old prospect with three top-20 finishes this fall. He is a young player who deserves it and one who could have a brilliant career. This could get explosive in detail, and if things like sponsor exemption points make the difference, this discussion will only become more intense.

I go back to some comments made by Jon Rahm in August 2023, just before he left for LIV, when asked about exemptions for sponsors at signature events.

“I expressed that when it came up,” Rahm said. “I wasn’t in favor of there being invitations or exemptions, whatever you want to call it, in these tournaments. Everyone who plays deserves it in one way or another. To get a waiver, you just don’t want it to go to someone who just – for whatever reason – likes you.”

For other players, 2025 is at stake

There are a lot of interesting names still fighting to even tour next year.

Daniel Berger has had many lives for a golfer who is only 31 years old. He previously won the St. Jude Championships in 2016 and 2017. One of the top 10-15 golfers in the world in 2021 and 2022. He won at Pebble Beach and was part of the victorious Ryder Cup team at Whistling Straits. But back injuries can be a depressing and difficult break in this sport. He missed 18 months and understandably his return was not smooth. Berger, a normally solid putter, lost strokes on the green and failed to post a single top-10 finish during the regular season. His seventh-place finish in Jackson is promising, but Berger is currently No. 129. Can he finish strong?

Alejandro Tosti has become a strange combination of golf villain and fascinating/confusing project from a 28-year-old. He completed the Korn Ferry Tour a year ago, but now the hot-headed Argentine is ranked No. 128. Tosti has always been inconsistent on and off the course, one of those golfers who might start with a 65 but end up missing the cut. After finishing T2 in Houston in March, his play declined. He made the cut at the PGA Championship and finished T18 at the Olympics, but two missed cuts in the fall isn’t what you want. Maybe his T9 will get him going in Las Vegas.

Wesley Bryan is one of the better known and most popular YouTube golfers, but after eight years on tour, Bryan has fallen to 138th. He’s playing better this fall and reaching the top 40 every week. There’s just a lot of catching up to do.

On Sunday, @BenGriffinGolf draw, the worst round of the day @ZOZOCHAMP move within the #AonNext10.

No. 51-60 will receive places in at the end of the year @ATTProAm And @TheGenesisInv. pic.twitter.com/qoZ6PwGA65

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) October 28, 2024

While the top 50 regular season players are guaranteed spots in the signature events throughout 2025, golfers who place 51st through 60th in the fall standings will earn spots in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and the Genesis Invitational , two major signature events. Jordan Spieth (out with a wrist injury) will not be on this list. At 62, funny young Australian Min Woo Lee is on the outside looking in. Smooth former bouncer and 2024 PGA Tour winner Jake Knapp is 61 years old. Justin Rose is No. 58 and could easily be eliminated.

The new name for 2025

You should know who Matt McCarty is. The 26-year-old left-hander from Santa Clara finished the 2024 Korn Ferry Tour season with dominance, winning three times in six starts and becoming the first to win three KFT events in a season since Bryan in 2016. Then in his second PGA career as a tour starter, he won the Black Desert Championship in Utah by three shots.

McCarty might have staying power — he led the KFT in the all-around rankings, a metric that combines points, putting, eagle leader, birdie leader, sand saves, greens in regulation, driving distance and driving accuracy. Some other notable names topping this ranking on the KFT before coming to the PGA Tour, per The athlete Contributor Justin Ray? Scottie Scheffler, Justin Thomas, Will Zalatoris, Jason Day, Chris Kirk and Zach Johnson.

It’s not everything, but the fact that he could last the entire season and then win a PGA Tour event in the fall is a big sign for the future. It’s also nice to see more left-handed players competing at a high level!

But before we get started, guess who was the all-around leader last season? Our old friend Joe Highsmith is fighting for a spot at number 126.

(Top photo by Joel Dahmen: Yong Teck Lim / Getty Images)