SIMMONS ISLAND, Ga. — Matt Kuchar completed his nineteenth consecutive season on the PGA Tour, ending 118th within the FedEx Cup, which might have been sufficient to maintain his full card besides this yr, when the tour lowered the cutoff to prime 100 as a substitute of prime 125.
The subsequent step for the 47-year-old Kuchar seems to be getting profession cash waivers, however it’s not that straightforward.
It is a totally different PGA Tour than the one he first performed in 2002. There are eight signature occasions, 4 majors, The Gamers Championship, and three FedEx Cup Playoff occasions. Mr. Kuchar will enter 2026 with out being in both of those classes.
“I do not know what number of begins I will get,” mentioned Kuchar, who completed T-67 on the RSM Basic. “I do not know if benefiting from the exemption would give me a distinct begin. It is a tough query. It does not imply I can compete in high-class occasions.”
The query is whether or not his conditional standing at No. 118 within the FedEx Cup will permit him to play almost as many occasions as he would qualify for profession cash exemption.
“We’re sort of in uncharted territory,” he mentioned. “I feel they’ve crunched the numbers, however I do not know the way nicely their situation will pan out.”
PGA Tour officers predict that gamers ranked one hundred and first to a hundred and tenth within the FedEx Cup (which they keep all year long) will play in about 16 of the 19 tournaments after which win each fall FedEx Cup event besides Japan.
Kuchar is eight spots under that group and might be relegated if he would not play nicely early on.
He has time to get two exemptions. Even on this period of nice wealth, Kuchar has continued to play nice video games through the years, rating fifteenth in profession winnings with $61,538,738. That is a little bit greater than $15.4 million over the No. 25 participant, so it will not value him to attend one other yr to get top-25 exemption.
That is one thing Kuchar must work out subsequent month earlier than the Sony Open in Hawaii.
Kuchar has solely had one top-10 end this yr, tied for fifth on the John Deere Basic, however has missed the reduce simply twice in 18 begins.
“2025 wasn’t the yr I needed. It was a irritating yr,” Kuchar mentioned. “I feel I solely missed the reduce twice, however I simply couldn’t appear to place collectively per week the place I used to be hitting nicely and placing nicely.”
