'We don't want PGA Tour rejects:' Is 50 still the right age of eligibility for PGA Tour Champions? Opinions are sharp and divided

(Editor's note: This is the second part of a two-part series examining the PGA Tour Champions and its eligibility age from Golfweek's PGA Tour senior writer Adam Schupak. The first part of the series, on Tiger Woods and his potential involvement in the PGA Tour Champions, is linked here.)

Carl Pettersson is stuck in what many PGA Tour professionals over the age of 40 refer to as no man’s land.

Pettersson, 46, aka the Swedish Pancake, has made 443 career Tour starts, won five times, reached as high as No. 23 in the world in 2006 and earned more than $22 million on the PGA Tour, but injured a wrist in 2016 and has cashed a check just once since October 2017. He’s made just 10 starts in the last six years since turning 40 and underwent surgery on both hips a year ago – three months apart – to repair torn labrums that had limited his mobility.

“I’m just getting back into the swing of things,” he said during a recent phone interview with Golfweek. “I’d like to make a run on the Champions Tour in a few years.”

That is a common refrain of pro golfers as they approach the half-century mark. In no other profession do workers welcome turning 50 more than PGA Tour pros, who blow out all those candles and instantly become eligible for golf’s great mulligan, PGA Tour Champions, the 50-and-older circuit. But getting to an age that often sets off a mid-life crisis in others and transitioning to a life of (mostly) no cuts and suddenly being one of the longer players again can be tricky business. As the Tour becomes younger and deeper, it’s become harder than ever to keep a card and remain relevant after age 40, demoting some pros to eke out a living on the Korn Ferry Tour, others to become talking heads on TV or, in Pettersson’s case, Uber Dad around town.

Is 50 still the right age for eligibility to PGA Tour Champions? It’s a question that has surfaced every few years since the senior circuit came into fruition in 1980. Opinions are sharp and divided.

Jeff Sluman tees off the second hole during the first round of the 2024 Mitsubishi Electric Championship at Hualalai Golf Club. (Photo: Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)

“It could possibly help both tours,” Jeff Sluman, 66, said. “Get some more youth in there, more access for the Korn Ferry Tour pros on the PGA Tour.”

“Every record out here started at 50,” Scott McCarron, 58, said. “They should never lower it. That’s what it is and what it should always be.”

When Golfweek asked PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan if he felt age 50 still is the right criteria to become eligible for the PGA Tour Champions and has there been any consideration of lowering that number, he essentially brushed the question aside for another day.

“The only way I would respond to that is that 50 has worked very well, and when you look at the impact you can have by lowering the age level and thinking about who is going to start playing on PGA Tour Champions versus continuing to play here competitively and thinking about those that are on PGA Tour Champions today and the records that are there, it's complicated,” Monahan said. “But we're dealing with a lot of complexity, so that's something that we'll continue to look at.”

Four years ago, before COVID-19 or LIV Golf emerged to focus their attention, members of the PGA Tour policy board pushed for PGA Tour Champions to evaluate if the time was right to lower the age of eligibility. One suggestion was to staircase the age down one year at a time until it would be lowered to 45 to avoid the shock and make it more palatable for current members of the senior circuit. The reality is there’s no equitable way to do it – someone is going to feel as if he’s been screwed.

Justin Ray, head of content at Twenty-first Group, provided several stats that confirm what seems obvious by now: the PGA Tour is getting younger. From 2000 through the 2012-13 season, 18.2 percent of PGA Tour winners were age 40 or older. Since 2013-14, that number is significantly lower — 8.4 percent.

From 2000 through 2011, there were nine different seasons where 15 percent or more of the wins on Tour went to players age 40 or older. There has not been a single season where 15 percent or more were age 40 or older since.

In the 2021-22 season, there was only one player in their 40s all season to win — Chez Reavie at the Barracuda Championship, and he was 40 years old. Since 1990, there have been four seasons where there were two or fewer winners on the Tour age 40-plus — wait for it — two of them are 2020 (2 wins) and 2022 (1 win) and this season could be headed to a third. Camilo Villegas, 41 at the time, Justin Rose, 42, and Lucas Glover, who won twice at age 43, were the only 40-somethings to lift a trophy last season. Just one player 40 or older has tasted victory so far this season: Brice Garnett, 40, at the Corales Punta Cana Championship, an opposite-field event with a diluted field.

Brice Garnett celebrates making his putt for birdie on the fourth playoff hole to beat Erik Barnes at the 2024 Puerto Rico Open at Grand Reserve Golf Club in Rio Grande, Puerto Rico. (Photo: Andy Lyons/Getty Images)

In fact, since Phil Mickelson's win at the 2021 PGA Championship at age 50, only seven events have been won by players 40 or older – a ratio of just 4.8 percent. Nobody older than 43 has won during that span. Stewart Cink won at 47 (Sept. 2020 and April 2021) and Brian Gay at 48 (Nov. 2020) but they have been the exception to the rule. This season, there were eight players age 45 or older that were fully exempt on the Tour, including Matt Kuchar (46), Zach Johnson (48) and Scott Gutschewski (47) — only one of them, Charley Hoffman at No. 82 is currently in the top 125. The trend of younger winners and 40-somethings trying to hold on to status for dear life as they count the days to 50 has been hard to ignore and was the impetus for the PGA Tour policy board approaching the Champions Tour policy board to investigate the issue. A study was conducted that found that neither sponsors nor players were in favor of it.

So, the idea of lowering the eligibility age died on the vine.

James Hahn, 42, one of the policy board members at the time, recalled this being the final verdict: “They said, 'We don’t want PGA Tour rejects. If you’re still competitive on the PGA Tour (in your late 40s) and have status, why would you want to play on the Champions Tour?' ”

Indeed, the players who do move the needle tend to stay competitive longer and try to delay their transition to the senior circuit as long as possible for a simple reason: Nearly all of the Champions Tour's regular-season purses are approximately $3 million, or less than first prize at a PGA Tour Signature event. It’s a case of simple economics why a player such as Cink continues to spend the majority of his time on the PGA Tour despite having turned 51. But Hahn, for one, questioned how much the members of the Champions Tour policy board – at the time David Toms, Paul Goydos and Joe Durant, who had each earned more than $7 million since turning 50 – were able to separate their own self-interest with what’s best for the future of the senior circuit.

“We’re in a room full of hypocrites,” Hahn said. “Joe Durant lost his card and then went on the Champions Tour. Now he’s on the board. You don’t want a PGA Tour reject but you were a Tour reject.”

Joe Durant reacts after winning the 2024 Cologuard Classic at La Paloma Country Club in Tucson, Arizona. (Photo: Christian Petersen/Getty Images)

Hahn said he supports seeing the eligibility age reduced to 47 or 48 – calling 45 “too young” – but claimed that Durant, Goydos and Toms didn’t want younger competition fearing they’d have instant success “and take money out of their pockets.”

“They don’t want that to happen,” Hahn said. “They are looking out for themselves and their friends more than for their business. There wasn’t a chance to pass the regulation of lowering the age because the people on their board are irrational and don’t see the benefit, or if they do see the benefit, it’s at the expense of them and their friends and affecting their personal income. After this conversation, it was put quickly on the sideburner because we didn’t want to have conflict between our boards.”

Kevin Kisner, 40, who served on the board at the time and supported lowering the eligibility age, agreed with Hahn’s assessment saying, “It’s dead in the water for now.”

To those on the Champions Tour, the attitude can best be summed up by the expression if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

“We looked at it extensively as an organization and we looked at it in concert with the player directors on the regular tour. We were open to it because to be honest with you there's been some push to lower it,” PGA Tour Champions President Miller Brady said. “My response to that after looking at it, the guys that are going to move the needle out here, when they're 48 the big names are still competitive on the regular tour, and they're not going to come out here. At 48 I think Jim Furyk was still ranked in the top 10 in the world. I don't need to lower the age for other journeymen, that doesn’t help us sell our product and it may have pushed out a Tom Kite or Ben Crenshaw. While Kite may not have been competitive anymore, he was fantastic in the pro-am and he’s a Hall of Famer. So I don't need to bring in a 48-year-old who’s going to push out a big name. Now I may be told I have to do that at some point. But at least right now, everyone appreciates that it's not something we should do.”

But the problem remains that being sentenced to “no man’s land” is happening a lot earlier for pros than ever before. More and more players are biding time in their 40s.

CARY, NC - OCTOBER 09: Woody Austin watches his tee shot on the 16th hole during the first round of the SAS Championship at Prestonwood Country Club on October 9, 2020 in Cary, North Carolina. (Photo by Chris Keane/Getty Images)

For Woody Austin, 60, who has banked more than $9 million on the senior circuit, the question is rather simple: “Do you get to collect anything else at any other endeavor at 45? I think not. It doesn’t need to get younger,” he said.

Austin blames equipment and the emphasis on the power game for dumbing down the ability to make a living on the Tour.

“I get that because the game has changed and these guys are better at 20 because the game is so frigging easy now you want to make it easier for the guys who get kicked out at 40, but no. You’re not a senior at 40 or 45," he said. “Pretty soon the high school kids are going to be professionals if they keep making the game so easy. These guys aren’t any better at 19 than they were back in the day; you don’t have to know golf anymore. All they know is clubhead speed and go hit it. We had to know everything, they have to know nothing. Stop making it so easy and you wouldn’t have so many good 20-year-olds.”

Interestingly enough, Steve Stricker, 57, who led the Champions Tour money list with nearly $4 million in earnings last season and thus with the most to lose with an age change, has been one of the leading proponents of lowering the age. Stricker, who hosts the American Family Insurance Championship in his native Wisconsin, recalled being in the equipment trailer during a rain delay at his event in Madison in 2022 with Brady and discussing lowering the eligibility age.

“Wouldn’t 47 be a great time with Tiger about to turn 47 shortly?” he asked at the time. “It would boost this tour. We’re losing Lee Westwood and some other LIV guys. So I texted Tiger and he responds right away. No chance. When he comes out here he wants to compare his time out here to the greats – to Bernhard Langer and Hale Irwin. That’s him, right? Taking those records and having them in a spot where he can try to erase those records.”

But Stricker remains resolute that lowering the age would only strengthen the senior circuit.

“I still think we can change it to 48,” Stricker continued. “That doesn’t mean Tiger has to start at 48. But let Carl Pettersson come out and play and stay relevant. I support that concept, I really do. A couple years younger, somewhere in that range 45-50, 45 is a little aggressive but I’m thinking the 47-48 age would be a good boost for us. I think it is even more important now with some LIV guys going away. If we lower the age, there will be 10 more Steven Alkers that are 48 and hungry to play.”

Ernie Els embraces Steve Stricker after winning the 2024 American Family Insurance Championship. (Photo: Stacy Revere/Getty Images)

That touches on another future concern: Will players be motivated to play into their 50s? While Alker is the model for the journeyman making good from the fountain of youth — he earned $841,849 for his career on the PGA Tour and more than $8 million and counting since joining the Champions Tour — Hunter Mahan, 42, could be the archetype of the modern star player. He won six times and earned more than $30 million in prize money before walking away from the game in 2021 to spend more time at home with his family and began coaching high school golf.

When he joined the Tour, Kenny Perry, Vijay Singh and Jay Haas experienced some of their best years after 40. Before them, Jack Nicklaus, Lee Trevino and Raymond Floyd all won majors in their 40s.

“I don’t see that happening again,” Mahan predicted. “The idea of a 40-year-old being the Player of the Year seems impossible. Guys are going to be like ‘I have so much money, do I want to grind at this at 45 and travel all the time?’ Some guys will, but it’s not going to be the game where guys play into their 60s.”

Davis Love III hits a tee shot on the third hole during the first round of the SAS Championship at Prestonwood Country Club on October 13, 2023 in Cary, North Carolina. (Photo by Mike Mulholland/Getty Images)

Davis Love III concurred that careers are trending shorter and the eligibility age may need to be lowered down the road.

“You might get to a point where guys have made so much money that they don’t care about playing at 50,” he said. “If someone had my career starting now, they’d make $620 million. If a guy does that by their 40s, why would he want to come out here and play? Our purses are staying the same.”

But that hasn’t stopped Pettersson from counting the days until he’s eligible for one of the two exemptions for players aged 48-49 into Korn Ferry Tour fields every week based on his position on the career money list and likely at least a year of exempt status on PGA Tour Champions when he turns 50. Does Pettersson think 45 is the right age?

“I see both sides, where 45 makes a lot of sense but everyone else has had to wait to 50 so keep it at 50,” he said.

It seems inevitable that the data supporting lowering the age will become so convincing that the powers-that-be will have a hard time sticking their head in the sand for too long. Does being two months away from turning 47 and unlikely to benefit from an age reduction color his opinion? Pettersson chuckled and said ...

“Selfishly for me, yes.”

This article originally appeared on Golfweek: 'We don't want PGA Tour rejects:' Is 50 still the right age of eligibility for PGA Tour Champions? Opinions are sharp and divided