page_title: PGA Tour
section_title: Event categories
hierarchical_section_title: PGA Tour / The structure of the PGA Tour season / Event categories
caption_attribution_description: Ryder Cup displayed at the 2008 PGA Show
context_page_description: The PGA Tour is the organizer of the main professional golf tours played by men in the United States and North America. It organizes most of the events on the flagship annual series of tournaments also known as the PGA Tour, as well as PGA Tour Champions and the Korn Ferry Tour, as well as PGA Tour Canada, PGA Tour Latinoamérica, and PGA Tour China. The PGA Tour is a nonprofit organization headquartered in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, a suburb of Jacksonville.
  Originally established by the Professional Golfers' Association of America, it was spun off in December 1968 into a separate organization for tour players, as opposed to club professionals, the focal members of today's PGA of America. Originally the "Tournament Players Division", it adopted the name "PGA Tour" in 1975 and runs most of the week-to-week professional golf events on the tournament known as the PGA Tour, including The Players Championship, hosted at TPC Sawgrass; the FedEx Cup, with its finale at The Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club; and the biennial Presidents Cup.
context_section_description: Majors: The four leading annual events in world golf are the Masters Tournament, U.S. Open, The (British) Open Championship, and the PGA Championship. These events each automatically receive 100 OWGR points.
  World Golf Championships (WGC): A set of events co-sanctioned by the International Federation of PGA Tours which attract the leading golfers from all over the world, including those who are not members of the PGA Tour. Note that the HSBC Champions was made a WGC event in the middle of the 2009 season.
  Unique: Two tournaments rate as unique, for different reasons:
  The Sentry Tournament of Champions, the first tournament of the calendar year, has a field consisting of winners from the previous season's competition only. This results in a field much smaller than any other tournament except for The Tour Championship, with no cut after 36 holes of play.
  The Players Championship is the only event, apart from the majors and the World Golf Championships, which attracts entries from almost all of the world's elite golfers. It is the designated OWGR flagship event for the PGA Tour and awards 80 OWGR points to its winner. Only major championships can be awarded more OWGR points. For purposes of the FedEx Cup standings, The Players has had an identical point allocation to that of the majors since the Cup was instituted in 2007.
  Playoff event: The final three events of the season (four from 2007 to 2018). The top 125 players on the points list are eligible for the first event and the field size decreases to The Tour Championship with 30 players.
  Team: A United States team of 12 elite players competes in the Ryder Cup and the Presidents Cup in alternate years. The Ryder Cup, pitting a team of U.S. golfers against a European team, is arguably the highest profile event in golf, outranking the majors. The Presidents Cup, which matches a team of U.S. golfers against an international team of golfers not eligible for the Ryder Cup, is less well established, but is still the main event of the week when it is played. There is no prize money in these events, so they are irrelevant to the money list, but an immense amount of pride rides on the results.
  Regular: Routine weekly tour events. The "regular" events vary somewhat in status, but this is fairly subjective and not usually based on the size of the purse. Some of the factors which can determine the status of a tournament are:
  Its position in the schedule, which influences the number of leading players that choose to enter.
  Its age and the distinction of its past champions.
  The repute of the course on which it is played.
  Any associations with "legends of golf". Six events in particular have such associations (four of these are invitational events):
  The AT&T Byron Nelson, named after Byron Nelson, was until 2007 the only current event named after a PGA Tour golfer.
  The Arnold Palmer Invitational, formerly the Bay Hill Invitational, closely identified with Arnold Palmer and played at a resort he owned.
  The Genesis Open and the Charles Schwab Challenge, both identified with Ben Hogan, although the Colonial is more closely identified with him since he won that tournament five times.
  The Memorial Tournament, founded by Jack Nicklaus, played on a course he designed, and annually honoring a selected "legend".
  Invitational: These events are similar to the regular ones, but have a slightly smaller field and do not follow the normal PGA Tour exemption categories. Invitational tournaments include the Genesis Invitational, the Charles Schwab Challenge, the Arnold Palmer Invitational, the RBC Heritage, the Memorial Tournament. The tournaments usually have an association with a golf legend, or in the case of the RBC Heritage, a famous course. The table below illustrates some of the notable features of the exemption categories for these events:
  Alternate: Events which are played in the same week as a higher status tournament (either a WGC or the Open Championship) and therefore have weakened fields and reduced prize money. They are often considered an opportunity for players who would not qualify for 
caption: The Ryder Cup, contested in even-numbered years between teams from Europe and the United States
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