The Jordan Spieth Special Treatment Has To Stop

Update: Yes, Jordan Spieth played well at the WM Phoenix Open. He finished T4, eight strokes back of winner Thomas Detry. It was the first time he finished a tournament within 12 strokes of the winner since the 2024 Phoenix Open.

The point of the article is that Spieth—a guy who has only won twice since July 2017—shouldn’t get auto access into signature events based on his popularity or his past accomplishments. The WM Phoenix Open, which is not a signature event, could have been an opportunity for him to win the event and get into all signature events for the rest of the year. If you took away sponsor exemptions for sig events, we would get to see the Spieths, Rickie Fowlers, Gary Woodlands, etc. of the world try to earn their way back into the top events. That would be a fun storyline and could raise the profile of second-tier events that might not get great fields.

Similarly, it’s interesting to me when players could play their way out of those top events. Imagine if Justin Thomas or Ludvig Aberg or whoever else it is goes into a huge slump and is no longer among the top guys. No other sport would voluntarily keep struggling players on the field. Should the Eagles have had to start Nick Foles at QB in this year’s Super Bowl because he won in 2018? No, it’s a volatile game and better players came along. If Foles suddenly proved he was worthy of being a starting QB on a top team, he would be back.

Let the players decide who goes into the top events. The majors are their own thing with their own specific criteria, but the PGA Tour has a different set of criteria for sig events. Let the top players compete in those top events. If they can’t qualify, they aren’t a top player.

My opinion is that a more rigid structure would be better for the PGA Tour. Spieth playing well in Phoenix only further proves my point. If he was playing for something tangible like getting six more quality starts in the biggest events, then that would be massive for him. That chase is way more interesting than him getting a handout into all of the sig events. And yes, I know it’s not only Jordan. There are other guys in this category. I was making a point and used him as an example.

The battle of the PGA Tour against LIV has been positioned as “the serious golf” against “the invitational golf”—and there is a lot of validity to that statement.

The Tour is where most spots are earned. There is an extensive qualifying system to get a Tour card. And now as the top players compete in big-money signature events—a tour within a tour, really—there is qualifying to get into those specific tournaments. Among the ways you can enter that elite club: finishing in the top 50 of last year’s FedEx Cup, being among the top 10 players in the current FedEx Cup standings who are not otherwise qualified, ranking among the top 30 of the Official World Golf Ranking or winning a current-year Tour event.

You can play your way in and you can play your way out.

LIV, on the other hand, has virtually no qualifying. Players were invited and signed contracts. A guy like Anthony Kim received a spot in the circuit based on nothing besides his accomplishments well over a decade ago. And while a relegation system technically exists, there are no real consequences from it.

It’s simple then, right? The Tour is serious golf and LIV is invitational exhibition golf?

That is mostly true—but there is a sizable hole in the Tour’s meritocracy argument.

Sponsor exemptions don’t jive with being a meritocracy

Tournament sponsors regularly get to hand-pick a few players—those who are not previously qualified—to compete in their events.

Take next week’s Genesis Invitational at Torrey Pines (it’s normally held at Riviera Country Club but had to be moved after the Southern California wildfires). This is a signature event with a limited field. Most of the guys who will be playing had to earn their way into the field.

It’s an open system. Anyone could earn a Tour card and then play well enough to get into an event like the Genesis.

However, there are a few guys in the event who did not meet that criterion but received an invite regardless: Jordan Spieth, Rickie Fowler, Justin Rose and Gary Woodland are among that small group.

This is the second special exemption Spieth has received into a signature event. He played in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am last week. He is recovering from a wrist injury and arguably the worst play of his career, but he is getting to enter the best events and able to rack up FedEx Cup points regardless of how he plays.

This is a sticky situation. Obviously the sponsors, who are being asked to put up a lot of money, want to have more popular players in the event. It creates a more entertaining product. Guys like Spieth and Fowler being a part of the event are more immediately valuable to the tournament than guys like Andrew Novak and Greyson Sigg (no offense).

We talk a lot about TV ratings here, and stars matter a lot for those. The Tour had a good week at Pebble as an average of 3.3 million watched Rory McIlroy win. McIlroy’s superb play, the event being at an iconic venue and a lack of football games being played drew a lot of eyeballs to CBS.

Someone like Spieth has that kind of power, too. In fact, the best previous TV ratings at Pebble came when he almost won in 2021.

I would like to watch him play great golf. Most golf fans would, too.

Here is the issue: Spieth doesn’t deserve to be there. None of the guys who received exemptions deserved it.

In my opinion, adding “unqualified” star talent to events is a short-term fix that fails to see a long-term view of the Tour as a whole.

If Spieth had not been invited into these events, his fight to get back into the signature event ecosystem would have been a compelling storyline. You probably would have seen a couple of articles on this site talking about it.

Perhaps he would have played in the Farmers Insurance Open a few weeks ago—a tournament that had its worst field in 30 years—and perhaps he would have fared better against weaker competition. Perhaps that event would have received a ratings boost instead of relatively few people watching. It could have been strengthened.

His repeated inclusion in that kind of lower-tier Tour event could boost some of the “have-nots” on the schedule. We would be watching to see whether he could turn things around. If he won or consistently played well, he would be back in the best events.

Yes, Spieth was injured last year. If he wasn’t injured, he probably would have qualified for the signature events.

But sports are not about what might have happened. Players get injured. In golf, guys can be hurt and unable to compete for years at a time. There is a system for them to re-establish themselves on the Tour, as there should be.

In this case, Spieth is getting to live off his past accomplishments for the standings of 2025. He could finish 50th in the FedEx Cup standings and knock out someone who didn’t receive those same invitations to signature events.

I don’t blame Spieth or others for taking that route—of course they should take the opportunity—but that isn’t a pure meritocracy.

It’s unserious.

The Tour would be better off as a whole if it became completely cut-and-dried when it comes to qualifying.

The battle between serious golf, entertainment and pleasing sponsors

Special exemptions have existed for a long time in golf.

The majors offer them for players who might add something to the event. Joaquin Niemann, for example, has been invited to the Masters the past couple of years because he is at an OWGR disadvantage as a LIV player.

The Masters is an invitational, though. They can pick any player they want to be in their event. The PGA Championship can do the same thing. The U.S. Open and Open Championship are, by definition, open for anyone to qualify.

The Tour is not supposed to be an invitational. It has a structure. In the past few years, that structure has become even more rigid as playing opportunities are reduced and the Tour bifurcates into the haves and have-nots.

The rigidity should be celebrated. It’s a captivating part of sports like relegation in soccer or making the playoffs in the NFL. There are systems in place—if you don’t like them, play better.

The challenge of 2025 for a guy like Spieth should be that he has to play better. He should have to “go down to the minors” and find his fastball.

I’ll admit it’s a conundrum. How do you ask AT&T to put up $20 million and then not have a player the company sponsors in the field for their event? Particularly as ratings are scuffling and the Tour is under the threat of fans leaving for other entertainment options.

But I would say adding Spieth to that kind of star-studded field and having him finish miles out of contention is less valuable for the Tour in the long-term than if he were to be added to some of the non-signature events that could really use his presence.

While it’s only a small portion of guys who are in this position, the accumulation of those kinds of players earning their way back is better across the board.

It’s a battle for attention in this brave new world of golf entertainment but not everything has to be a short-term lottery ticket hoping to help out singular tournaments by adding a known name to the field.

Everyone likes a comeback story. They like to follow teams and players who struggle, fall out of form and then reinvent themselves. That is entertaining.

It’s a thorny issue and a good debate but that is my opinion.

What are your thoughts on this? Let me know below in the comments.

Top Photo Caption: Jordan Spieth plays a bunker shot at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. (GETTY IMAGES/Ezra Shaw)