Check out the video from Feeding Northeast Florida after receiving $1 million
The Players Championship donated $1 million from the proceeds of the 2025 tournaments to Feeding Northeast Florida for their Nutrition Security wing. in Jacksonville, Fla. Wednesday July 9, 2025. Employees from TPC also helped pack 100 boxes at the facility located at 5245 Old Kings Road.
The 2026 Players Championship field will be reduced from 144 to a base of 120 players.Tiger Woods is not currently eligible for the tournament and would need to win a PGA Tour event to qualify.The main eligibility change impacts the FedEx Cup points list, now including the top 100 instead of the top 125.
One of the first things fans may notice about the 2026 Players Championship is that there aren’t as many players.
When the first round begins on March 12 at the Players Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass, there will be nearly two dozen fewer competitors. The field of 144 (which sometimes was a few more, based on how many players qualified under the stringent requirements to make the deepest field in a professional golf tournament) has been reduced to a base of 120 players.
It will be 123 by the first round. Brooks Koepka is eligible for The Players based on his return to the PGA Tour through the Returning Members Program, which will bring the field to 121. Two more players will be added off the alternates list at noon March 9 to make it an even 41 threesomes for the first two rounds.
Is Tiger Woods eligible for the 2026 Players Championship?
Two-time Players champion and 15-time major champion Tiger Woods is not currently eligible for the tournament. The only way Woods can get into the field would be to win a Tour event through the Arnold Palmer Invitational, get into the top 10 on the 2026 FedEx Cup points list through the Cognizant Classic (Feb. 26-March 1) or be high enough on the points list to fill the field of 120, if fewer than that are eligible after all other priority categories have been filled.
What eligibility category is affected most?
The main priority category for getting into The Players is winning a PGA Tour event since the 2025 Players. The next category is the one that will be impacted the most: the top 100 on the FedEx Cup points list, after the FedEx Cup Fall events. In previous years it was the top 125.
Among the pros who weren’t immediately eligible for The Players entering the season based on that category were past champions Adam Scott and Matt Kuchar, and PGA Tour winners Max Homa and Tom Kim.
However, the players who finished outside the top 100 can still get into the tournament off the current FedEx Cup points list. Many players are eligible through multiple categories (defending champion Rory McIlroy, for example, is eligible through six categories) so there will still be around 20 slots open based on performance this season.
Players Championship eligibility, listed in order of priority
• Winners of PGA Tour cosponsored or approved tournaments, whose victories are considered official, since the last Players Championship.
• The top 100 players from the prior season’s FedExCup Fall Points List.
• Winners of Masters Tournament from 2021-2025.
• Winners of The Players Championship and The Open Championship from the years 2021-2025.
• Winners of the U.S. Open and PGA Championship from the years 2021-2025.
• Winners of the FedExCup from the 2020/21–2025 seasons.
• Winner of WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play in 2023.
• Winners of The Genesis Invitational in the last three years (2024-2026).
• Winners of the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard in the last three years (2024-2026).
• Winners of the Memorial Tournament in the last three years (2023–2025).
• The top 50 players from the Official World Golf Ranking through the Cognizant Classic (Feb. 26-March 1).
• The top 10 players from the 2026 FedExCup Points List through the Cognizant Classic.
• The winner of the previous year’s PGA Tour Champions Kaulig Companies Championship.
• The leading player to earn a PGA Tour card from the prior season’s Race to Dubai Ranking.
• The leading player from the prior season’s Official Korn Ferry Tour Points List.
• If necessary to complete a field of 120 players, PGA Tour members from the 2026 FedExCup Points List
When will fans know the Players field?
Eligible pros have until March 6 at 5 p.m. to commit to The Players.
If they are playing in the Arnold Palmer Invitational and in an afternoon group, they will have 30 minutes after they finish their round to commit.