Why is the senior tournament ‘the hardest tournament to hold your card’?

“We’re in the playoffs and I’ve only been on the tour a few years, and I’m just starting to realize that this has to be the toughest, tightest tournament to hold your card in the world,” Harrington said. . “Thirty-six guys hold their card. And even if you win, you only get one year of exemption.

“At first I didn’t know. But now I’m seeing people that I’m playing with, and they’ve had a good year, and then the next year they’re just playing average, averageand they are gone,” he continued. “And some of them will never get a second chance.”

For players who do not make the top-36, Monday qualifiers and sponsor exemptions are options. But even the annual PGA Tour Champions Q-School is no guarantee, as it accepts only the top five finishers.

“That’s really cut and dry,” Harrington said. “Thirty-six to hold your card is very, very tight. It doesn’t take much to drop those 36. So that’s why you see guys here practicing. And if you’re not one of the guys practicing, someone else will do it for you. And that means you will slip out of your position.

“Boys practice like they practiced on tour. They actually probably even work a little harder here.”

Why do players on the senior tour fight so hard? Harrington offered another thoughtful response.

“I think they feel like there’s a limited life here,” he said. “I think you get to the PGA Tour. You think everything is rosy and you’re always going to be on the PGA Tour. But when you get to the Champions Tour, you realize you’re getting older, you’re only a few years old and you’re going to, you know, you can get three, four years before you leave because you’re not going to be as competitive at 56, 57 as you were at 50. So they realize they get this one chance and they have to. use it as soon as they can as soon as they can.”

As Harrington noted, time marches on. And each year, the pool of players expands to welcome the next crop of eligible 50-year-olds.

“There’s always new guys, always fresh guys coming out,” Harrington said. “I think I counted seven rookies in the top 36. So there are seven guys who have left.

“So yeah, it’s really, really cut out here. Very, very difficult.”

The Dominion Energy Charity Classic begins Friday, followed by the PGA Champions Tour’s final regular-season event, the Simmons Bank Championship, in Little Rock, Ark., next week. The Charles Schwab Cup Championship will be played from November 7-10 at the Phoenix Country Club in Arizona.

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As a four-year member of the inaugural class of varsity golfers at Columbia, Jessica can put away anyone on the tee. She can also drive them in the office, where she is primarily responsible for producing print and online features, and overseeing major special projects, such as GOLF’s inaugural Style Issue, which debuted in February 2018. Her series The original interview, “A Round With,” debuted in November 2015 and appeared in both magazine and video form on GOLF.com.