What Is a Sponsor Exemption in Golf and How Does It Work?

Golf is one of the most popular sports in the world. Apart from professionals, there are millions of recreational golfers who play this sport for fun. Moreover, there are plenty of amateur golfers trying to become pros. There is a golfing event almost every week apart from December. In almost every event, around 130 to 140 players are competing for victory.

However, there is an opportunity for golfers who don’t have a PGA Tour card to compete in these events. This is where sponsor exemption comes into the picture. So, what exactly is sponsor exemption and how does it work?

What is sponsor exemption in golf?

A professional tournament in golf has a limited field size that is filled based on the rankings. However, sponsor exemption is used to set aside a few spots at the discretion of the tournament’s sponsor. In simple words, the sponsors of the tournament can invite any player who isn’t a part of the field to compete in the event. 

Sponsors pay a huge amount of money to get their names in a tournament’s title. Hence, they get the liberty to select a few players according to their will. So Sponsor exemption is a huge factor in golf. 

How do you get an exemption in golf?

Players who do not get qualified for an event still have a chance of making it with the sponsor’s exemption. Though how does a player get sponsor exemption? So on the PGA Tour, a tour member can accept an unlimited number of sponsor exemptions.

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But the non-PGA Tour members can take a maximum of seven in a season. Moreover, golfers who need sponsor exemptions need to write letters to tournament directors, who will hopefully accept it. 

So if a player can receive a sponsor exemption if he is a popular golfer where the tournament is played. Or maybe he can be a top amateur competing in college golf. Moreover, he can even be a star who has lost his tour status but still has a huge fan following.

How do sponsor exemptions work?

So now that we know how do players get an exemption, let us see how does it work? The sponsor exemptions are mostly, if not always, given by the tournament directors. Moreover, they can award a maximum of eight sponsor exemptions in an event. 

The tournament usually looks at the list of players who have finished 2 to 25th last year on the PGA Tour’s money list. Therefore, if any of those players aren’t in the field, then a minimum of two sponsor exemptions must go to those players. 

Additionally, at least two sponsor exemptions should go to the PGA Tour members who are not in the field. So, when the tournament director or sponsors go through all these things, they make the final list and send the invites. In this way, top amateur golfers or popular golfers who haven’t qualified get a chance to compete in the event. 

Notably, this is also referred to as sponsor invites or sponsor invitations. But popularly, everyone calls it and refers to it as sponsor exemption, which is almost applicable to every golf tour around the world.  

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