Billy Horschel skips European flagship event with his PGA Tour card on the line

Billy Horschel has been the top American supporter of the European tour flagship event, having played the BMW PGA Championship every year since 2019 except for 2020 during travel restrictions for the COVID-19 pandemic.

Horschel wasn’t expecting to be in Asheville, North Carolina, this week, but he had no choice.

Horschel, who missed five months in 2025 recovering from hip surgery, has failed to register a top 10 on the PGA Tour this year and is No. 100 in the FedEx Cup going into the fall. If he doesn’t finish in the top 100, he loses his full card for the first time in more than a decade.

Horschel is playing the inaugural Biltmore Championship Asheville, the first of eight tournaments in the FedEx Cup Fall that for many can seem like two months of Q-school.

Horschel posted to his social media account a message to the BMW PGA Championship, where he has won twice and won’t be able to return this year.

“Unfortunately, due to my not-so-stellar play on the PGA Tour this year, I’m going to have to skip,” he said. “I’m devastated. I’m upset. It’s a decision that was really tough to make.”

There are seven other tournaments after Asheville. Then again, Horschel started the year the year at No. 53 in the world with plans of trying to get into The Players Championship and the Masters. His world ranking now is at No. 162.

Horschel, whose exemption from winning in 2024 in the Dominican Republic runs out this year, is not the only player with a lot at stake this fall.

Lucas Glover, who goes onto the PGA Tour policy board next year, is at No. 101. His three-year exemption from winning back-to-back weeks in 2023 is expiring. Christiaan Bezuidenhout is in Asheville at No. 97 in the FedEx Cup. He’ll be playing in the Presidents Cup next week.

Also at stake is finishing among the top 60 — the top 50 are set from the BMW Championship — to get into a pair of $20 million signature events at Pebble Beach and Riviera in 2027. Jordan Spieth is at No. 52 and plans to play in Japan next month.

European tour’s top 10 for PGA Tour Cards

The European tour is down to its final eight events, with Patrick Reed in front on the Race to Dubai. His tie for second in the Irish Open expanded his lead over Rory McIlroy to 840 points.

Reed also is a lock to get a PGA Tour card offered to the leading 10 players in the Race to Dubai not already exempt. Only three of the top 13 players on the current points list — McIlroy, British Open champion Ryan Fox and PGA champion Aaron Rai — already have PGA Tour membership.

Eugenio Chacarra, at No. 3 and 84 points behind McIlroy in the Race to Dubai, is virtually a lock. He left Oklahoma State for LIV Golf, got out when it wasn’t all he thought it would be, and became the first ex-LIV player to get a PGA Tour sponsor exemption (Puerto Rico) earlier this year.

He is followed by South Africans Casey Jarvis and Jayden Schaper, one-time Ryder Cup player Andy Sullivan, Jacob Skov Olesen, Bernd Wiesberger, Oliver Lindell, Daniel Hillier and Nacho Elvira.

Wiesberger also had a PGA Tour card before defecting to LIV. But he lasted only two years before finishing out of the top 40. The Austrian has been back on the European tour the last three years.

Missing from the Race to Dubai ranking is Joaquin Niemann, who won the Australian Open as part of the 2023-24 season for a two-year exemption on the European tour. Niemann, however, lost his European membership when he failed to meet the minimum required tournaments last year, playing only three times outside of the majors.

Solheim Cup already looking ahead to the next one

The Solheim Cup was not even over for 24 hours before the LPGA Tour announced tickets on sale for the next one in 2028 at Valhalla Golf Club in Kentucky.

Europe beat the U.S. team, 15-13, at Bernardus Golf in the Netherlands. Next it will try to win again on U.S. soil. The Americans won the last time on home soil, but the teams have split the last four matches in the United States dating to 2013.

Valhalla, which has hosted the PGA Championship four times, becomes only the fourth course to host a Ryder Cup (2008) and a Solheim Cup. The others are the Greenbrier in West Virginia, Muirfield Village in Ohio and Gleneagles in Scotland.

General admission tickets (Wednesday through Sunday) at Valhalla are $235. Daily general admission tickets for competition days are $104.

The next move is the majors

Now that the PGA Tour has outlined its criteria for the Championship Series in 2029, the next move comes from Augusta National on how players qualify for the Masters, and whether they provide invitations to winners of tournaments on both tiers.

The objective of Augusta National is to keep the field under 100 competitors to enhance the experience of the players. It’s been that way the last six decades. Tradition is a big deal at the Masters.

Last year, the Masters offered an invitation to the winner of 27 tournaments, from the RBC Heritage through the Texas Open (not including majors). All but two of them wound up inside the top 50 the week before the Masters and would have qualified, anyway.

The Masters does not award invitations to opposite-field winners, and it becomes a question of whether the club looks at the lesser Challenger Series the same way. The Challenger Series also will have a number of standalone events that could get viewed differently.

The PGA Championship awards a spot to all PGA Tour winners, even opposite-field events, and it uses special invitations to the fill the field. The changes on the PGA Tour is not likely to affect that.

The U.S. Open and British Open do not have criteria for PGA Tour winners. Rather, it’s whether those organizations wish to tweak their exemptions to reflect the two-tier system that starts in 2028. Both use the FedEx Cup standings as a category.

Good time to be in Atlanta

Adam Scott and Alex Smalley were among 12 players who reached the Tour Championship without winning this year. Along with getting into the majors, just getting to East Lake comes with a two-year exemption on tour. That could pay dividends.

The PGA Tour decided to keep current exemptions for the 2028 debut of the Championship Series. That means players like the 46-year-old Scott and Smalley are assured of starting 2028 on the elite level. Would they have qualified anyway? Perhaps.

But it’s one less thing to worry about next year. The two-year exemption for reaching the Tour Championship goes away in 2027.

Divots

The PGA Tour announced three more hires to its senior leadership team geared toward long-term growth. Tyler Rutstein (formerly with Under Armour) will be chief marketing officer; Mike Mahar (Wyndham Hotels) will be chief technology officer; and John Fizer will be senior vice president of investor relations. Fizer, who played college golf at Virginia and competed on mini-tours, has spent his career in wealth management. … Alvaro Ortiz, the younger brother of Carlos Ortiz, became the fifth Korn Ferry Tour player to be assured of earning a PGA Tour card for 2027 after winning the Simmons Bank Open in Tennessee. … Nine players from Europe’s winning Solheim Cup team currently are entered in next week’s LPGA event in Arkansas. The U.S. team has eight players who are currently listed as part of the field.

Stat of the week

Celine Boutier went 4-0-0 in her first Solheim Cup on European soil in 2019. She has gone 0-7-0 in her last two home Solheim Cups.

Final word

“They drink on Saturday. We drink on Sunday.” — Team Europe on the bus back to the hotel after beating the Americans in the Solheim Cup.

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