SIMMONS ISLAND, Ga. — Matt Kuchar finished his 19th consecutive season on the PGA Tour, finishing 118th in the FedEx Cup, which would have been enough to keep his full card except this year, when the tour lowered the cutoff to top 100 instead of top 125.
The next step for the 47-year-old Kuchar appears to be getting career money waivers, but it’s not that simple.
This is a different PGA Tour than the one he first played in 2002. There are eight signature events, four majors, The Players Championship, and three FedEx Cup Playoff events. Mr. Kuchar will enter 2026 without being in either of these categories.
“I don’t know how many starts I’ll get,” said Kuchar, who finished T-67 at the RSM Classic. “I don’t know if taking advantage of the exemption would give me a different start. It’s a difficult question. It doesn’t mean I can compete in high-class events.”
The question is whether his conditional status at No. 118 in the FedEx Cup will allow him to play nearly as many events as he would qualify for career money exemption.
“We’re kind of in uncharted territory,” he said. “I think they’ve crunched the numbers, but I don’t know how well their scenario will pan out.”
PGA Tour officials predict that players ranked 101st to 110th in the FedEx Cup (which they maintain throughout the year) will play in about 16 of the 19 tournaments and then win every fall FedEx Cup tournament except Japan.
Kuchar is eight spots below that group and could be relegated if he doesn’t play well early on.
He has time to get two exemptions. Even in this era of great wealth, Kuchar has continued to play great games over the years, ranking 15th in career winnings with $61,538,738. That’s a little more than $15.4 million over the No. 25 player, so it won’t cost him to wait another year to get top-25 exemption.
That’s something Kuchar will have to figure out next month before the Sony Open in Hawaii.
Kuchar has only had one top-10 finish this year, tied for fifth at the John Deere Classic, but has missed the cut just twice in 18 starts.
“2025 wasn’t the year I wanted. It was a frustrating year,” Kuchar said. “I think I only missed the cut twice, but I just couldn’t seem to put together a week where I was hitting well and putting well.”
