Exemptions and Qualifying
Current Champions Tour competitor and TV golf analyst Bobby Clampett has called the process for determining the field in Champions Tour events "the most complicated system known to man," and added that "ot a single player even understands it fully."
Clampett attempted to explain the process in a 2011 post on his blog. Standard Champions Tour events—apart from invitationals and majors, which have their own entry criteria—have a field of 78. The first 60 places in the field are filled as follows:
- Up to 30 players who are in the top 70 of the all-time combined PGA Tour and Champions Tour money list. Since the bulk of those players have not yet turned 50 and are not yet eligible for the Champions Tour, this category rarely, if ever, fills up.
- The top 30 players, not otherwise exempt, who finished in the top 50 of the previous year's Champions Tour money list.
This leaves 18 places:
- Members of the World Golf Hall of Fame eligible by age.
- Winners of Champions Tour events in the previous 12 months.
- At the start of the season, 5 players from the previous year's Champions Tour Qualifying Tournament, in order of finish. During July, this category changes to include all non-exempt players based on the season's money list.
- Previously exempt players coming off medical exemptions.
- Top four players in their first two years of age eligibility with multiple PGA Tour wins.
- One spot for the highest finisher, not already exempt, within the top 10 of the previous week's tournament. Note, however, that a top-10 finish in a regular tournament does not qualify a player for a major. In another quirk, a top-10 finish in a major does not qualify a player for the next tournament on the schedule, even if it is a regular tournament.
- Up to 5 spots for sponsor's exemptions, but subject to reduction or elimination if the previous categories fill out the field.
- Up to 4 spots for Monday qualifiers, also subject to reduction or elimination
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