If you think that "Draft Day" should be a holiday like the others celebrated at this time of year, then we understand each other. It also means that you’re in the right place.

Welcome to my annual full-membership fantasy ranking! For many, it’s a welcome back. Thank you.

This is a guide covering what’s what from a fantasy point of view for the 2026 PGA TOUR season. Of course, it wouldn’t be complete without the classic ranking of all PGA TOUR members with conditional status and better. There are 213 guys slotted this year. More on them and the complementary "Cheat Sheet" in a moment.

Coming to terms with the changes for 2026 can be simplified into two elements – status and playing time. Both are necessary to understand for your draft and real-time considerations, such as drop-adds and trades.

As it concerns the former, because the cutoff for fully exempt status was the top 100 in the 2025 FedExCup, adjustments were made extending through the top 150. Nos. 101-150 were segregated into three groups that alternate with new slots for medical extensions. Golfers with Major Medicals have dropped from behind the top 125 in the FedExCup (through 2025) to their new position behind golfers who finished 101-110 in the 2026 FedExCup. Minor Medicals slot after the 111-125 grouping, while those with Non-exempt Medicals are below the 126-150 cohort.

Playing time is the outcome of status used to construct most fields, so its seat is at the head of the adult table for fantasy value. Of the 37 tournaments contributing to the FedExCup season in 2026, 19 will be hosting a different field size than they did in 2025. They are broken down as follows:

• Six events experienced a reduction of 24 golfers per tournament. The first is the Sony Open in Hawaii with 120 entrants. It opens the season on Jan. 15-18 because The Sentry was canceled. The last of the six events down two dozen is THE PLAYERS Championship, which is limited to 120.
• The Zurich Classic of New Orleans has shed eight two-man teams. Its field of 144 reflects the drop of 16 golfers.
• Eleven have been sliced by 12 entries. This includes eight tournaments previously reserved for the maximum of 156 golfers.
• The Corales Puntacana Championship will host 12 more golfers, so its field has expanded to 144. This was possible due in part to its move from late April to late July.

No changes were made to the other 18 tournaments consisting of an aggregate of 1,726 starts.

The impact of playing time is baked into the full-membership fantasy ranking and referenced in places, but it doesn’t factor in the unknown of the FedExCup Fall. Since 2023, playing time in the season-ending phase has been influenced by FedExCup ranking at the conclusion of the TOUR Championship. So, if you’re in a league that includes the FedExCup Fall and makes available roster transactions, for future review, bookmark my X thread detailing starts made in all three editions of the FedExCup Fall by all golfers who qualified for their respective FedExCup Playoffs.

The annual disclaimer is that the full-membership fantasy ranking is not a Power Rankings or a prediction of FedExCup finish. Rather, it’s a reflection of draft value based on variables including the aforementioned projected playing time, status, results of the previous year, age and other forces referenced where applicable. Sleepers and cautions are detailed just as they are in any other fantasy guide. Also read into an additional layer of my confidence in the form of asterisks that denote bargain pricing beside salary values. Adjust as necessary to your format. This includes once the season is underway because the ranking will not be updated.

For those of you who kick it old school for in-person drafts, the one-page printable "Cheat Sheet" is for you. It is helpful to have it alongside as you read through the comments so that you can highlight and cross off golfers in advance and in real time.

Levels of status via the 2025 FedExCup are broken down as follows with corresponding exemptions:

STATUS = BERTHS

• Top 100: Entry into opens and THE PLAYERS Championship.
• Top 70: Qualified for the 2025 FedExCup Playoffs but didn’t earn exemptions into every Signature Event in 2026.
• Top 50: Exempt into all Signature Events in 2026.
• Top 30: Exempt into every tournament before the Playoffs except the PGA Championship. Their membership exemptions also are extended through the 2027 season if they aren’t already.

Other levels of status are as follows:

• Multi-year: Winners prior to 2025 who didn’t finish inside the top 100 of the FedExCup but who remain fully exempt.
• Career earnings exemptions: Only Matt Kuchar is in position to use it. He has until Dec. 25 to decide.
• Medical Extensions: Terms are noted. Short of a victory that would yield an automatic promotion into the winners category, golfers on Major Medicals would retain status in the same Priority Ranking for the remainder of the season if they fulfill their terms. Golfers with other medicals would be promoted to the Major Medical category for the remainder of the season. If a golfer on a medical fulfills his terms before THE PLAYERS Championship, he will qualify for the PGA TOUR’s flagship event.
• DP World Tour: 2025 DP World Tour Race to Dubai (10 golfers)
• Korn Ferry Tour: Korn Ferry Tour graduates from Points List (20 golfers)
• Q-School: PGA Tour Qualifying School presented by Korn Ferry graduates (five golfers)
• PGA TOUR University: David Ford
• PGA TOUR University Accelerated: Luke Clanton and Gordon Sargent
• 101-110: Nos. 101-110 in the 2025 FedExCup
• 111-125: Nos. 111-125 in the 2025 FedExCup
• 126-150: Nos. 126-150 in the 2025 FedExCup

OTHER NOTES

• All golfers who are eligible for all Signature Events, THE PLAYERS Championship and/or any of the majors are listed alphabetically in Qualifiers. I update it weekly during the season and midweek when necessary.
• Because The Sentry was canceled, golfers who won a tournament in 2025 to qualify for it are instead exempt into the RBC Heritage.
• At the time this was published, several golfers could not be confirmed for having a medical extension. For whom medicals are deduced to apply, they are notated with “TBD” in the "status" column. Comments for these golfers will be revised with terms after medical extensions are finalized. I update this subset of membership when relevant in a thread on X. This is the final post for 2025.
• Golfers who finished Nos. 101-200 in the 2025 FedExCup are reserved spaces when available in DP World Tour events. Of those who finished with conditional status in 2024 (Nos. 126-150 in the FedExCup), Brandon Wu (26 starts) and Troy Merritt (19) made the most of it in 2025. It’s a nice option for the eligible, so be aware (and beware) of that tug.
• The target for Special Temporary Membership (STM) in 2026 is 254.028 FedExCup points. That is Trey Mullinax’s total in his position of 150th in 2025. With the conduit for 10 DP World Tour members to graduate at the conclusion of their season, STM hasn’t been utilized by those golfers or achieved by other eligible non-members. In 2025, Haotong Li, Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen and Marco Penge all qualified for STM. None accepted but all are fully exempt PGA TOUR members in 2026 via the DP World Tour.
• There are no golfers who are exempt as a Life Member or for having achieved 300 career cuts made.
• As the winner of the 2025 PGA Professional Championship, Tyler Collet is allowed up to six somewhat restricted starts, but he is not a PGA TOUR member, so he is excluded from the ranking.
• There are 22 rookies in the opening class of 2026. As I have for the past three seasons, I will track the entire class weekly in a season-long thread titled “Rookie Ranking” on X. This is the recap of The RSM Classic that concluded the 2025 season.

Even if you’re in a private league, we’ll have action again in the form of PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf. It remains free to play. All features will be familiar to returning gamers, including the function of the captain that was introduced a year ago. In addition to a weekly Fantasy Insider that I will be writing, I will be returning as a member of the PGA TOUR Experts league. Our in-house little league will share rosters and strategies in our popular Expert Picks that run prior to every tournament. Not that I’m never a target as the resident fantasy guru, but I’ve won consecutive league titles for the first time. Heavy lies the crown. That means that I’m chasing my first three-peat. I’ll have visors and ball markers on order soon!

Should you ever have a question or just want to connect, reach out to me publicly or privately on X. Until then, have fun and thanks for your loyalty!

NOTE: All of the golfers ranked include 2025 earnings (“salary”), levels of status on the PGA TOUR and ages as of Jan. 15, 2026. An asterisk beside a salary value indicates that a golfer is a bargain.

FULL-MEMBERSHIP RANKINGS: Intro | 1-50 | 51-100 | 101-150 | 151-200 | 201-213 | Cheat sheet