Korn Ferry Tour

What is the Korn Ferry Tour?

The Korn Ferry Tour is the developmental tour of the PGA TOUR, which founded it in 1990 and owns and operates it. Its members earn their way onto the PGA TOUR through a season-long points list, and its alumni — 82 percent of the PGA TOUR’s current membership, with more than 700 PGA TOUR titles, 35 major championships and eight FedExCup champions among them — include Scottie Scheffler, the 2019 points-list winner, and Im Sung-jae, the 2018 winner.^{[1] [6] [7]}

How does it work?

The 2026 season has 25 events from the Bahamas Golf Classic on 11 January to the Korn Ferry Tour Championship at The Federal Club in Glen Allen, Virginia, on 11 October; the last four, with fields shrinking from 156 to 132, 100 and 60, are the Korn Ferry Tour Finals. Membership comes through PGA TOUR Q-School, the top ten of PGA TOUR Americas, PGA TOUR University and the previous year’s finish, with places 21 to 60 fully exempt and 61 to 100 conditional.^[2] [3]

How does a player move up?

Since the 2025 season the top 20 on the Korn Ferry Tour Points List at the end of the Tour Championship earn PGA TOUR membership for the following season — down from 30 in 2023–24 and 50, split between a regular-season and a Finals list, before that. Three wins in one season bring PGA TOUR membership the following week under the Three-Victory Promotion, and the points-list winner also receives exemptions into The Players Championship and the U.S. Open. Q-School separately awards five PGA TOUR cards.^{[3] [4] [5]}

Since when does it exist?

The tour began in 1990 as the Ben Hogan Tour and has carried six sponsors’ names: Nike (1993–99), Buy.com (2000–02), Nationwide (2003–12), Web.com (2012–19) and Korn Ferry from June 2019. The pandemic merged 2020 and 2021 into a single season, won by Stephan Jäger; the Finals were folded into a single points list in 2023, when Ben Kohles was the first winner under that system; and Johnny Keefer, who had won the PGA TOUR Americas points list in 2024, topped the first 20-card season in 2025.^[6] [7]

Season list winners of the last ten seasons — a points list since 2019, a money list before; 2020 and 2021 were combined into one season.

Why does it matter?

The Korn Ferry Tour is the defined route to the PGA TOUR: a place in its top 20 is, by rule, a PGA TOUR card. For a petition that makes it the golf equivalent of an affiliated minor league — owned by the major tour, feeding it by a published rule — and a player’s points-list position or Finals field is a precise statement of standing in the profession.^[1] [3]