How Many Tournaments Do PGA Players Play Per Year?

How many tournaments do PGA players play per year? Professional golfers are required to play a certain amount of tournaments in order to retain membership on the PGA Tour. Read on to learn about this minimum, as well as the average and maximum total tournaments a PGA player will participate in each year.

Required Amount of Tournaments

There are certain requirements for professional golfers in order to maintain membership on the PGA Tour. One specific mandate is the required number of tournaments that golfers must compete in. In order to maintain membership, golfers on the PGA Tour must play in at least 15 tournaments every season. 

The regular-season golf schedule includes 44 tournaments. The PGA Tour season normally spans from mid-September to the end of August of the following year. Major tournaments are spread out throughout the year, and smaller ones occur almost every weekend. 

PGA players have the freedom to choose some of the tournaments they want to play in, while they have to qualify for others. Recently, the PGA has required certain golfers to participate in a tournament that they haven’t gone to in the past four years. This rule is meant to increase participation from higher-ranked golfers at lesser-known tournaments.

Average Number of Tournaments

The average PGA player will usually participate in 20 to 30 tournaments every season. Players will decide to participate in tournaments based on many different factors. The importance of a tournament will have an influence on whether or not a player decides to compete.

In addition, players will want to make sure they can handle the distance of travel between the various tournaments they are interested in participating in. Some PGA golfers may have a history of performing well at certain tournaments, so they’ll make sure to participate in those every year. 

Some of the most popular tournaments that PGA players compete in include:

• The Players’ Championship: Held annually at The Tournament Players Club at Sawgrass (TPC at Sawgrass) in the month of March.
• The Masters: Held annually at Augusta National Golf in Augusta, Georgia, during the first week of April.
• The PGA Championship: Held annually at a variety of courses in the United States, usually in late May, the weekend before Memorial Day.
• The U.S. Open: Held annually at a variety of courses in the United States, usually in mid-June.
• The Open Championship: Held annually at a rotating group of courses in Scotland, England, and Ireland, usually in mid-July 

Single-Season Tournaments Participated-In Record

The PGA Tour record for the most tournaments played in a single season is 38, which was done by Buddy Gardner in 1986. During this season, Gardner participated in 38 different tournaments but only made 18 cuts. As a result, Gardner earned only $92,000 in official prize money, which is a relatively small amount. In addition, Gardner only had two top-ten finishes during the 1986 season.

Two years later, PGA player Mike Donald would tie Gardner’s record with 38 tournaments played during the span of a season. During the 1988 season, Donald made the cut 20 times out of 38 tournaments played. In total, Donald had four top-seven finishes throughout the season. Both Gardner and Donald competed in two unofficial events, which increased their playing total to 40 tournaments each.

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