We can call this current iteration of the PGA Tour the “Signature Event Era” in part because of how transitional the league feels at the moment. It won’t look the way it does now forever. So how will the years 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026 (and possibly even 2027, depending on the speed of changes) be remembered?
Chiefly for what they brought to the fore — limited-field, often no-cut events played for $20 million. They were an attempt at clarifying the Tour’s “product” as well as a wartime device crafted to maintain loyalty from the best players in the sport, and they were an intriguing answer to a fundamental question about what makes professional golf compelling. But they also made things plenty awkward for the PGA Tour.
Make enough institutional moves on behalf of the Tour Elite, the Scottie Schefflers and Xander Schauffeles of the world, do enough to protect your brand names and it can start to feel like you’re neglecting the midfield, the up-and-comers. The tension of that ecosystem created some natural angst around these Signature Events, and never more than with the four sponsor exemptions offered into each of them.
Those sponsor exemptions are, in theory, a boon for events. They ensure that figures who may not have qualified can still have a positive impact on field strength, ticket sales, sponsor value, etc. But Signature Events were created during a time when the PGA Tour was fighting off LIV Golf and thumping its metaphorical chest about being the most meritocratic of the elite golf tours. Giving spots in a field to players as interest boosts is not pure meritocracy.
And so these exemptions have come under scrutiny. At times they’ve been controversial. The companies and tournament directors who select these exemptions put a lot of thought into the decisions, but the tourney spots don’t always go to the best or most in-form players not already in the field. They may go to a player who won that tournament years ago. They may go to a player who is universally beloved and whose game has gone through a rough patch. They may go to a player lucky enough to be sponsored by the same company sponsoring the tournament.
So who is getting those invites, and how have they performed? Looking at the 19 most recent Signature Events and before this week’s 20th gets underway (we’re starting this tally in 2024, when the current system really took shape), we can do some proper analysis of those exemption decisions. Below is a scrollable chart that includes the world golf ranking of each player at the time of their exemption, as well as their finish that week.
PGA Tour Sponsor Exemptions
Player rankings (OWGR) at time of event and finishing positions. Bold = Policy Board member at time of event.
Player
Year
Tournament
OWGR
Finish
Peter Malnati
2024
Pebble Beach
249
T14
Webb Simpson
2024
Pebble Beach
225
T39
Adam Scott
2024
Pebble Beach
51
T20
Maverick McNealy
2024
Pebble Beach
197
T39
Gary Woodland
2024
Genesis
117
T39
Tiger Woods
2024
Genesis
893
WD
Will Zalatoris
2024
Genesis
54
T2
Adam Scott
2024
Genesis
48
T19
Nicolai Hojgaard
2024
Arnold Palmer
33
MC
Shane Lowry
2024
Arnold Palmer
54
3
Adam Scott
2024
Arnold Palmer
47
MC
Webb Simpson
2024
Arnold Palmer
241
T30
Kevin Kisner
2024
RBC Heritage
526
68
Shane Lowry
2024
RBC Heritage
37
T64
Webb Simpson
2024
RBC Heritage
221
T42
Gary Woodland
2024
RBC Heritage
136
T64
Matt Kuchar
2024
Truist
100
T34
Adam Scott
2024
Truist
52
T29
Webb Simpson
2024
Truist
220
T24
Gary Woodland
2024
Truist
146
T38
Billy Horschel
2024
Memorial
64
T15
Brandt Snedeker
2024
Memorial
717
MC
Matt Kuchar
2024
Memorial
101
T33
Alex Noren
2024
Memorial
54
T22
Billy Horschel
2024
Travelers
61
T55
Webb Simpson
2024
Travelers
223
T48
Michael Thorbjornsen
2024
Travelers
710
T39
Adam Scott
2024
Travelers
58
T39
Rickie Fowler
2025
Pebble Beach
79
T53
Harry Hall
2025
Pebble Beach
85
T58
Jordan Spieth
2025
Pebble Beach
77
T69
Gary Woodland
2025
Pebble Beach
188
T22
Rickie Fowler
2025
Genesis
91
T39
Min Woo Lee
2025
Genesis
53
48
Jordan Spieth
2025
Genesis
65
MC
Gary Woodland
2025
Genesis
169
MC
Rafael Campos
2025
Arnold Palmer
186
MC
Mackenzie Hughes
2025
Arnold Palmer
67
T22
Justin Rose
2025
Arnold Palmer
36
T8
Min Woo Lee
2025
Arnold Palmer
55
MC
Rickie Fowler
2025
RBC Heritage
114
68
Mackenzie Hughes
2025
RBC Heritage
65
T3
Jordan Spieth
2025
RBC Heritage
58
T18
Matt Kuchar
2025
RBC Heritage
129
T32
Rickie Fowler
2025
Truist
125
T15
Keith Mitchell
2025
Truist
90
T7
Jordan Spieth
2025
Truist
46
T34
Gary Woodland
2025
Truist
94
T34
Rickie Fowler
2025
Memorial
124
T7
Matt Kuchar
2025
Memorial
139
T25
Jordan Spieth
2025
Memorial
51
T7
Brandt Snedeker
2025
Memorial
430
T7
Luke Clanton
2025
Travelers
120
T34
Rickie Fowler
2025
Travelers
107
T36
Tom Kim
2025
Travelers
52
T45
Gary Woodland
2025
Travelers
96
T36
Tony Finau
2026
Pebble Beach
105
18
Billy Horschel
2026
Pebble Beach
71
T48
Sahith Theegala
2026
Pebble Beach
92
T60
Keith Mitchell
2026
Pebble Beach
122
T52
Tony Finau
2026
Genesis
96
T28
Max Homa
2026
Genesis
148
T37
Tom Kim
2026
Genesis
118
T34
Adam Scott
2026
Genesis
71
4
Max Greyserman
2026
Arnold Palmer
52
T18
Billy Horschel
2026
Arnold Palmer
84
T13
Chris Kirk
2026
Arnold Palmer
98
T47
Jordan Spieth
2026
Arnold Palmer
75
T11
Wyndham Clark
2026
RBC Heritage
71
T16
Tony Finau
2026
RBC Heritage
110
82
Marco Penge
2026
RBC Heritage
37
T77
Billy Horschel
2026
RBC Heritage
97
80
Joel Dahmen
2026
Cadillac
181
T62
Max Homa
2026
Cadillac
118
T38
Max Greyserman
2026
Cadillac
67
T38
Keith Mitchell
2026
Cadillac
108
T55
Tony Finau
2026
Truist
117
—
Max Homa
2026
Truist
118
—
Mackenzie Hughes
2026
Truist
138
—
Webb Simpson
2026
Truist
441
—
Avg. OWGR rank (excl. Tiger Woods): 132.7 Avg. finish (MC/WD = 68, excl. not yet played): 38.3
At this point, no player has gotten more looks than Gary Woodland, who has received seven exemptions. He recently won the Houston Open in March, meaning he could enter the remaining Signature Events for 2026 without needing an exemption. Before that win, Woodland had banked invites into more than a third of the Siggies.
And you know what? The golf world has felt pretty good about those. Woodland has been battling challenges with his health since before his 2023 brain surgery. The 2019 U.S. Open champ is widely considered one of the kindest players on Tour. He recently came forward about his struggles with PTSD following that surgery, too, and remains one of the most impressive stories going, particularly in light of his recent Houston Open victory.
Greater scrutiny has followed exemptions given to players outside the world top 100. While those are the minority, one is happening this week, with No. 441 Webb Simpson getting a nod. It’s not hard to see why Simpson is in the field this week. Simpson has been a PGA Tour policy board member, is among the most beloved figures at the sponsorship level, and also happens to live on the property at Quail Hollow, host of this week’s event.
But just know that not every Tour member on the outside has loved seeing Simpson receive these exemptions constantly. He’s received the second-most exemptions, with six — alongside Rickie Fowler, Jordan Spieth and Adam Scott — but has never been in the top 200 in the world during any of those tournaments. To his credit, Simpson finished T24 on exemption at the 2024 Truist — but hasn’t fared any better since.
Sixteen of the 76 exemptions to date have been given to players outside the top 150 in the world at that time, and only Brandt Snedeker — ranked 430th ahead of the 2025 Memorial — was able to crack the top 10 the week of that exemption. As with all explanations for who receives these invites, there were plenty of reasons why Snedeker earned that invite, but an obvious connection is embroidered across the front of his hat: Workday, one of Snedeker’s most prominent sponsors, also sponsors the Memorial.
Kevin Kisner (then ranked 526), Michael Thorbjornsen (then 710) and Tiger Woods (893) also all received exemptions while outside the top 500 in the world, but each of those cases was extremely different. Kisner was 40 years old and had gone a full year without a top-30 finish. Thorbjornsen, a Massachusetts native and a top young talent, was invited to the Travelers Championship, widely regarded as the Signature Event of the Northeast. (He was 22 years old then, has since won on Tour and is now ranked 62nd in the world.) And then there’s Woods, who would get any sponsor exemption he wanted if he needed it, but in this case is the host of the Genesis Invitational and received the exemption before the Tour went so far as to manufacture a new, 80-win exemption category for him alone.
As for how these players are performing? The results are all over the place. And maybe that should be the expectation. The average finish for sponsor exemptions has been around 38th to 40th, directly in the middle of these 72- to 80ish-man fields. There have been nine top-10 finishes by sponsor exemptions and 11 who have finished 70th or worse — missed cuts and withdrawals included. Everyone else nets out somewhere in the middle of those two poles, which, again, might be exactly what’s expected. Below is a list of the players who have received exemptions, ranked from most to least.
7 invites: Gary Woodland
6 invites: Webb Simpson, Adam Scott, Rickie Fowler, Jordan Spieth
5 invites: Billy Horschel
4 invites: Tony Finau, Matt Kuchar
3 invites: Keith Mitchell, Max Homa, Mackenzie Hughes
2 invites: Min Woo Lee, Tom Kim, Shane Lowry, Max Greyserman, Brandt Snedeker
1 invite: Peter Malnati, Maverick McNealy, Harry Hall, Sahith Theegala, Tiger Woods, Will Zalatoris, Nicolai Hojgaard, Rafael Campos, Justin Rose, Chris Kirk, Kevin Kisner, Wyndham Clark, Marco Penge, Alex Noren, Michael Thorbjornsen, Luke Clanton, Joel Dahmen