The Korn Ferry Tour Finals is a series of four golf tournaments that conclude the season on the Korn Ferry Tour. The finals are contested in a playoff format, similar to the FedEx Cup playoffs on the PGA Tour, with players eliminated after each of the first three tournaments. At the end of the Finals, the top 20 players on the season-long points list earn PGA Tour membership for the following season ("Tour cards").
From 2013 to 2022, the Finals were conducted in a very different format, as a separate entity from the tour's regular season. The top 75 players from the Korn Ferry Tour, along with players who failed to make the top 125 on the PGA Tour that same season, competed in a series of three or four tournaments. The top 25 players based on points earned in the Finals alone earned PGA Tour cards for the following season. The series was established as a replacement for the PGA Tour Qualifying Tournament in 2013.
Tournaments
Since 2023, the first year of the new format, the Finals have consisted of the following four tournaments:[1]
Each event has an enhanced purse of US$1,500,000 and awards more points than the standard Korn Ferry Tour event. The first three events feature a standard tour cut rules, while the Tour Championship does not have a cut.[1]
In 2019, 2021 and 2022, under the original format, the Finals consisted of only three tournaments, as the Simmons Bank Open was not part of the series. In 2020, the Tour Finals series was not held as the Korn Ferry Tour revised its schedule into a combined 2020-21 season due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[2] The three tournaments that would have been part of the Finals were contested as regular-season events.
Prior to 2019, the Finals had been a series of four tournaments from its inception in 2013.[3] Three other tournaments were part of the Tour Finals for part of that period:
The top 156 players in the Korn Ferry Tour points system through the end of the regular season qualify for the first Finals event. The number of participants is reduced each week of the Finals based on the season-long points ranking. In 2023, however, in the first three Finals events, players ranked below the cutoff were able to play if eligible players did not take part.[1] This provision was dropped in 2024 and no alternate lists were used.[5]
Under the format in place from 2013 to 2022, there were four ways to qualify for the Finals:[6]
Finish in the top-75 on the Korn Ferry Tour's regular season standings (money list from 2013 to 2018, points from 2019).
Finish the PGA Tour's regular season ranked 126–200 on the FedEx Cup points list. Not all players with this criterion competed, as some were already exempt for the PGA Tour the next year through other means.
As a non-member of the PGA Tour, earn enough FedEx Cup points to place 126–200 on the points list.
Under the system introduced in 2023, the top 30 players on the Tour at the conclusion of the Finals earn a PGA Tour card. The points for the regular season and Finals are combined, with the Finals events worth more points than regular-season tournaments.[1] The change in the qualifying rules for the Korn Ferry Tour were made in conjunction with new rules for the PGA Tour Qualifying Tournament, which awarded PGA Tour cards in 2023 for the first time in a decade.[8]
Under the previous format, the top 25 players in the Finals (originally based on earnings, later on points) earned PGA Tour cards. This was in addition to the cards earned by the top 25 players on the Korn Ferry Tour during the regular season.[9]
Players who win their third event of the season during the finals are also fully exempt on the PGA Tour. The top 75 players, those who qualify for the Korn Ferry Tour Championship, are guaranteed no worse than full Korn Ferry Tour status for the next season. Those who finish 76th to 100th are conditionally exempt. Players ranked 31st to 60th are admitted entry into the Final Stage of Q School, those 61st-85th start at Second Stage, and those 86th to 100th begin at the First Stage.
Criticism
One unintended consequence of the elimination of direct access to the PGA Tour through "Q school" was that more amateurs turned professional earlier in the year (June instead of August) in order to have a better chance at earning a PGA Tour card through high finishes via sponsors' exemptions.[10]
Bolded golfers received full exemptions for the PGA Tour not subject to re-order. In 2013, golfers who led the regular season money list and the Finals money list received full exemptions.[11] Since 2014, golfers who led the overall money list and the Finals money list received full exemptions.[12] Points replaced money beginning in 2019.
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