Kevin Streelman celebrated his in-laws 50th wedding anniversary in Kauai last month and had to fly through Honolulu to get home anyway so he kissed his wife and kids goodbye at the airport and teed it up at Kapolei Golf Club, the site of the Monday qualifier for the Sony Open in Hawaii. His 65 earned one of four spots into the field, making it a working vacation in Hawaii and the first time he’d Monday Q’d into a tournament since 2007.
“When I turned pro, I chased Mondays in my car,” he recalled. “Some of my best memories were those times I got in, like at the 2003 Western Open. It was my first PGA Tour start and a dream come true.”
Streelman went on to finish T-53 at the Sony Open, so it didn’t change the course of his year, but at least he made a few FedEx Cup points and a paycheck. Next year, he won’t have the same opportunity.
Why is PGA Tour ending seven Monday qualifiers?
The Tour is implementing reductions in field size beginning in 2026 to avoid running out of daylight and failing to make the 36-hole cut on Friday. The Sony Open and this week’s WM Phoenix Open, which had 672 players sign up for eight pre-qualifiers, are among seven PGA Tour events that will have field sizes slimmed to 120 and won’t have a Monday qualifier anymore. The qualifiers at the Valspar Championship, Texas Children’s Houston Open and Valero Texas Open — which are being trimmed to fields of 132 — have been reduced from four spots to two available.
Streelman, 46, is a past member of the Tour’s policy board and last year served on the Player Advisory Council. He is conflicted on the Tour’s decision to scale back what has long been part of the fabric of the Tour.
“It’s about self-preservation,” he said. “We have to make our product good and appealing to our fans and sponsors.”
Keegan Bradley, the U.S. Ryder Cup captain, earned his card for the first time in 2011 but didn’t make it into the WM Phoenix Open and attempted to qualify that year for one of three spots into the field of 132. It didn’t work out for him that week but later that season he won the PGA Championship and wouldn’t have to return to the ranks of the Monday Q world. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t relate to their plight.
“It stinks for the people Monday-ing,” Bradley said. “But it’s not the Tour’s fault. We have to adapt to what the golf landscape is. We have to do these things on the fly. It used to be that you could plan years ahead. Now it’s like we have to make this decision this week; let’s make the best decision we can. It’s too bad but we’re part of that world now.”
Peter Malnati, a player director on the Tour’s policy board, knows that there have been only five golfers since 1980 who won a PGA Tour event after Monday qualifying earlier in the week, most recently Corey Conners in 2019. The Tour shared information detailing that the success rate for Monday qualifiers is very low — historically only 30-35 percent make the cut and often those who do are already members who were on the alternate list — so the thought in cutting back or eliminating Monday qualifiers is simple: maximizing playing opportunities for members who earned their card.
That doesn’t mean he fully endorses the decision. “It gnaws at me a little bit,” said Malnati, who is in his 11th season on the PGA Tour and never made it through final stage of Q-School. “It’s a cool story when a Monday Q guy gets in the mix. It feels like you lose something from the fabric of the Tour.”
Fellow Tour policy board member Webb Simpson expressed similar nostalgia for the role Monday qualifying into Korn Ferry Tour events played in him getting on Tour.
“Part of the wonder of our sport is anyone can pay their money and get out here,” said Simpson, expressing mixed feelings, before adding “I’ll miss that aspect of it that anyone can do it but I think this way will be better.”
Simpson said he’s in support of trimming field sizes for 2026 and didn’t get wrapped up in where the reductions would come from, adding that he’d rather four spots be for “our guys.” To the charge that the removal of Monday Q’s will make the Tour too much of a closed shop, he said, “I’ve always believed if you’re good enough, you’re good enough and you’ll find a way.”
He was more concerned about those that had earned a card had a fair shake at keeping their job. Last year, Rafa Campos, who earned exempt status as a graduate of the Korn Ferry Tour, only made a total of two starts in the months of January and February. There is another school of thought that giving more access to the Korn Ferry Tour, DP World Tour and Q-School graduates makes the Tour more of an open shop and that’s where the churn rate will kick in.
Ryan French, a vocal supporter and chronicler of players trying to make their way to the top circuits in professional golf, doesn’t see it that way.
“I think with all the rule changes they needed to find a way to cut the number of players in a field, and Monday (qualifiers) seemed to be one of the easiest ways to do it,” said French, whose website is MondayQ.com. “It’s just closing another door. This is a huge opportunity — there’s nothing else like it in sports — and we’re taking it away. The PGA Tour has, for my lifetime, been shoot the score and you’re going to play on the PGA Tour.”
He added, “I’m not trying to pretend like it’s a big part of the PGA Tour; it’s not, but I think it’s a small and important part.”
Streelman would agree. He may have missed the cut at his Tour debut in 2003 after Monday qualifying for the Western Open, but he argues that qualifying that week validated his hard work and showed him what he needed to do to make it to the next level. All these years, he’s made 304 cuts. But the Monday Q signs off this year from the WM Phoenix Open, which has held one every year since 1948, and French, Mr. Monday Q Info, worries that its days on the Tour may be numbered.
“It’s probably one step away from them being eliminated permanently,” he said.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Seven PGA Tour events to lose Monday qualifiers starting in 2026
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