New PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp was just handed his first face slap from The Masters. He’s the new kid on the block, and maybe he’s being tested.
However, in a way, the PGA Tour asked for it. By downgrading their own fall events and basically calling them play-in tournaments, the PGA Tour insulted their own product first. Augusta National is now just piling on.
The PGA Tour, along with the rest of the world, was told on Tuesday that the golfers who win from September to December are not good enough for the following spring’s Masters. Ouch! Is that rude or what?
The Masters is giving direct exemptions to winners of six national Opens but no longer to winners of fall PGA Tour events. Scottish, Spanish, Japan, Hong Kong, Australian and South African will earn spots https://t.co/rGol071yyf
— Bob Harig (@BobHarig) August 26, 2025
Yet, at the same time, The Masters is adding winners of national opens in faraway lands. (OK, we won’t go so far as to say they are pandering to increase international rights fees, will we?)
The PGA Tour fall events still receive the same number of FedEx points as all regular-season PGA Tour events, but because they don’t count toward the next Tour Championship, The Masters has decided that they are unworthy. So, the winners are now demoted in terms of status as far as Augusta National is concerned.
Now, the PGA Tour can fix the issue on its end with the stroke of a pen, but will it? It would make sense to. Change what a fall winner gets. Make their points count toward the next Tour Championship. Easy Peasy.
Hold a conference call of the competition committee and figure it out. The chairman of the committee...you know, Tiger Woods...went to Stanford. He’s smart enough to have some thoughts. And somebody needs to get on the phone with Fred Ridley and ask him what he wants to make this right.
If Ridley and the membership elect not to include fall winners, there’s always the option to fight golf fire with golf fire.
- Put an opposite-field event during The Masters with a giant purse and see what happens. (Gasp!) The Masters has a small field, and it includes a bevy of past champions who are unlikely to play well enough to make the cut.
Those national open winners Augusta is so pleased about are unlikely to be equal to Maverick McNealy or Ludvig Aberg, winners of the last two RSMs. That means there would be plenty of players left to hold a very high-quality, opposite-field tournament.
2. Hold the competing event on the West Coast, where it gets prime-time viewing in the East and Midwest. No azaleas there, but there are places with oceans, places with roses, places with giant trees, places with spectacular deserts. If you pay players and make it an official event, they will come.
3. Take away the exemption to the PGA Tour that Masters champions have received all these years. Make it retroactive.
4. Take away the FedEx points for winning The Masters. In for a penny, in for a pound.
If you are going to break up with the PGA Tour, it’s important to consider that it’s a two-way street. The Tour does as much for The Masters as The Masters does for the Tour.
I mean, really. Way to honor Bobby Jones’ memory. Boys, this is silly stuff. Everybody get over yourself. We're not saying winners of these great national opens around the world don't deserve a Masters invite. Because they do.
But give every PGA Tour winner an invitation to your tournament, not just those from January to August. Overall, we're talking about fewer than three tee times at Augusta come April.