Grayson Murray’s victory earned him a considerable paycheck … but another accolade could be what pushes him into the PGA Tour’s signature events series.
Getty Images/Michael Reaves
For years, winning on the PGA Tour, like Grayson Murray did at the Sony Open on Sunday, was a ticket to the good life.
The hard part was winning, of course. But once there, players unlocked a new degree of job security and earnings potential. The top-line benefits were prodigious: a two-year exemption into the big leagues, an invite to the Masters, a season-opening trip to Maui, and a guaranteed invitation to some of the Tour’s biggest events (the Players Championship, Arnold Palmer Invitational and Memorial Tournament, among others).
Yes, the business of entering the PGA Tour’s elite used to be simple: win and you’re in. But as the calendar flips to 2024 and the PGA Tour embarks upon a new way of competitive life, it is becoming clear that some things are not the same as they once were.
Take, for example, Murray’s win on Sunday in Hawaii — an emotional victory that marked his first on the big-T Tour in close to a decade and arrived just weeks after he’d battled through golf’s minor leagues to earn a spot on the Tour’s working class. But Murray’s win was more than just an inspiring step, it was also a moment of career affirmation. With the victory, he would earn the customary Tour exemption (this year plus two more), in addition to entry into the majors and, most notably, the Tour’s new big-money, limited-field signature events series. Entry into those eight signature events, which are flush with small fields, no cuts and massive paydays, could be enough to change the course of Murray’s life financially. But that was assuming he got an invitation.
In the past, Murray’s victory would have been enough to vault him into all of the Tour’s biggest events under the “current-season tournament winner” exemption category, but now, with smaller field sizes and no cuts at many of the signature events, tournament invites through that category were far from guaranteed. The Tour likely couldn’t welcome the winners from each of its 39 events and the previous year’s FedEx Cup top-50 while maintaining an 80-player signature event field — and even if they could do that, there were other field requirements to take into account, like the Swing 5 and Swing 10, that would add more players into the field. (The Swing 5: the top-5 non-signature-event-exempt players in FedEx Cup points from the current schedule “swing”. The Swing 10: the top 10 non-exempt FedEx Cuppers from the whole season.)
As Murray basked in the glow of victory, the realities of the new landscape in professional golf seemed to take shape for the first time. His life had changed with the victory, yes, but had it changed as much as it would have in prior years? The PGA Tour’s communications team quickly sent out a tweet clarifying the answer: no.
“With his win at the Sony Open in Hawaii, Grayson Murray is eligible for all remaining Signature Events in 2024,” the tweet read. “But [he] is counted in the Aon Swing 5 because that is a higher eligibility category than current-season tournament winners in the priority ranking for Signature Events.”
So, exemption mumbo-jumbo aside, what did the Tour’s announcement mean? It meant that as far as Murray was concerned, his signature event eligibility was tied more to his FedEx Cup ranking than to his performance on Sunday. Sure, the performance on Sunday had helped, pushing him to the top of the FedEx Cup rankings for the season (Swing 10) and from the Hawaii/West Coast swings (Swing 5) — but when it came down to dolling out invitations, those rankings would be more important than a PGA Tour victory.
There’s an argument to be made that this benefits those in the working class. The Swing 5 and 10 were created, after all, to avoid the “closed system” concerns of many in this group, providing a viable way into the signature events from the lower ranks. Wins will always help boost FedEx Cup rankings, which means they’ll always help boost signature event eligibility. But it opens the possibility for a world where a tournament winner could be left out of a signature event in favor of a regular high-finisher.
That might sound insignificant, and it is unlikely, but for those in the Tour’s “working” class (ranked 51-125), it represents a significant shift. After years of the “win and in” mentality, now the PGA Tour seems to be indicating that the consistency of one’s playing level is more important than the height of its peaks.
Of course, Murray probably won’t mind that shift very much on Monday morning, when he rises $1.42 million richer and in the pole position for the first few events of the signature event season. But as the golf world prepares for the first season under a new order on the PGA Tour, it’s wise for Murray and others to keep an important truth in mind: winning is everything, but it’s no longer the only thing.
English
French
German
Italian
Japanese
Spanish