About the First Priority Reshuffle

One interesting twist to the new wraparound PGA Tour season is that the priority reshuffles begin sooner. According to this article about the reshuffles at PGATOUR.com, the first one comes right after the OHL Classic at Mayakoba -- a mere two weeks from now (November 17).

If you click on the link above, you'll be taken to a table showing the current (October 28) position of the 52 players from the Web.com Tour. (It contains more than the Tour grads. Several of the players at the bottom of the list are on medical extensions. More on that later in this post.) You'll also see their FedExCup point totals and projected movement in the priority list if the reshuffle had happened last week.

I found it very interesting. You wouldn't have expected so much to happen so quickly.

Clearly the big winners here are Ryo Ishikawa and Will MacKenzie, who would move up to #1 and #2 respectively. Ryo is the only player on this list playing in the WGC this week, though he's not doing particularly well. But I expect he'll still be projected #1 since no one else from the list is playing.

Despite being in the mix at the Frys.com event, Chesson Hadley is projected to drop 3 spots from his current #1 spot. And Seung-yul Noh, the current #2, is projected to drop 21 spots!

Two big surprise movers are Ricky Barnes, projected to move up 23 spots from #31 (into the Top10), and Kevin Tway, projected to move up 24 spots from #44. Ricky's been struggling this year and Kevin is a true rookie. For them to make such a big move against some experienced players who were doing fairly well is not something I expected.

If you take a look at the table you'll get a good preview of just how dramatically your life can change on the Tour when you aren't fully exempt. Remember, the lower you are on the list, the less you get to play and the less control you have over your schedule. (You won't see either Michael Putnam or John Peterson on this list. Both won fully-exempt Tour cards through the Web.com Tour.)

And in case you're curious about how the exemptions are determined -- there are a bunch of different categories -- and just who holds each of those exemptions, you can check this very thorough list from PGATOUR.com. Putnam and Peterson got the Category 22 exemptions. Categories 25 and 26 are the ones shown in the reshuffle table.

If there are players whose status you want to keep up with, you'll want to bookmark the reshuffle link in the first paragraph. Of course, I'm sure all the guys listed on that page know exactly where they are.