Journeyman pro survives senior tour buzzsaw: ‘Hardest tour’

While the fight for PGA Tour status unfolded last weekend at the Bank of Utah Championship, dozens of other pros were fighting for their careers on a different tour.

At the Simmons Bank Championship, 54 PGA Tour Champions players battled in what was their final chance to secure a tour card for the 2026 season.

When the dust settled, Tag Ridings, one of the lucky few who survived the cut, called the senior tour the “hardest tour to get on.’

Here’s why.

Tag Ridings explains difficult task of making PGA Tour Champions

While the current PGA Tour Champions features big stars like Fred Couples, Bernhard Langer and Ernie Els, not all of the players are legends with Hall of Fame careers (and earnings) behind them.

Most of the tour is made up of pros playing to earn a living, ones that have kept up that fight over decades in pro golf.

Ridings is among them.

The 51-year-old PGA Tour Champions rookie played 239 PGA Tour events over his career, making 122 cuts and earning $4,712,032 in the process.

But he spent more time on the Korn Ferry Tour, where he teed it up in 296 tournaments, winning twice at the 2002 Permian Basin Open and the 2020 TPC Colorado Championship.

Ridings didn’t have full status on the PGA Tour Champions circuit this year. He played in 15 events, sometimes having to rely on Monday qualifying to get a spot.

But he made those starts count. He earned a runner-up at Galleri Classic in March to get off to a hot start. But by fall, he’d fallen to 45th in the Charles Schwab Cup standings.

That’s important because only the top 36 players in the final standings earn their tour cards for 2026. That’s a sharp contrast from the PGA Tour, where the top 100 in the FedEx Cup standings earn full status for the next season.

Ridings was ranked well enough, though, to qualify for the first round of the playoffs. And he made that count, too. He finished T5 at the Dominion Energy Charity Classic two weeks ago, vaulting up to 35th in the standings.

However, he still needed a strong finish at the second playoff event, last week’s Simmons Bank Championship at Pleasant Valley Country Club in Little Rock, Ark., to maintain his position and earn his full PGA Tour Champions card for next season.

He did so comfortably, going 13 under to collect his second runner-up of the season, moving to 22nd in the Charles Schwab Cup standings.

But in comments following the final round on Sunday, Ridings revealed that there was nothing comfortable about the difficult pursuit of a PGA Tour Champions card. In fact, he claimed it was the most difficult tour to join.

“It’s the hardest tour to get on, for sure,” a relieved Ridings said Sunday.

He used the tournament winner, 54-year-old Steven Alker, as an example. Like Ridings, Alker played most of his career on the Korn Ferry Tour. But since joining the PGA Tour Champions in 2020, he’s racked up 10 wins.

But Alker is the exception, not the norm, as Ridings explained Sunday.

“The last couple years on the Korn Ferry Tour, people are going, ‘Oh, you’re going to do great out there. Look at Alker, he’s killing it.’ I’m like, ‘He is, he shoots about 10 under every time he tees it up.’ I haven’t made that change yet, but maybe.”

The difficulty of the task made his success that much sweeter.

“To have it come through when I know how hard it really is to do, just ecstatic, really grateful,” Ridings said.

He also compared the pressure he faced in this year’s stretch run to previous attempts at earning his PGA Tour card.

“Well, the pressure is very similar to what I’ve been dealing with a lot of years trying to keep my card and making it back through Q-School when I’ve lost my card, fighting for that 25th position or 20th position now on the Korn Ferry Tour, which I’ve done several times and I’ve missed by one shot a couple of times.”

But he identified one key difference: the elite competition.

“It’s the same feeling of pressure except when you add in the fact that they’re Hall of Famers you’re trying to keep up with. Luckily, I don’t think too hard about that,” Ridings joked.

He also revealed that competing against the greats is one of the things that makes the PGA Tour Champions experience so special.

“Luckily they’re all fun to play with. To be honest with you, it’s a great tour to be out here playing with all of these guys. It’s just a good, casual, great feeling out there. They’re all fiery competitors, don’t get me wrong, but it’s all very professional and very sportsmanlike.”

The next and final stop for Ridings and the PGA Tour Champions is the season-ending Charles Schwab Cup Championship, which kicks off November 13 in Phoenix, Ariz. There, the 36 surviving pros will play for a $3 million purse and bonuses based on their final position in the standings.

Notable pros who lost PGA Tour Champions cards for 2026

Among the pros who finished the Simmons Bank Championship in the top 36 are many former PGA Tour stars. Miguel Angel Jimenez is in second, with major winners Stewart Cink and Ernie Els in third and fourth.

Padraig Harrington is in sixth place, with 1999 U.S. Ryder Cup hero Justin Leonard just behind him in seventh.

Other majors winners making the cut include Retief Goosen, Angel Cabrera, Darren Clarke, Vijay Singh and Bernhard Langer.

All of them will join Ridings in the field at the Charles Schwab Cup Championship.

But there were other notable pros who did not survive the buzzsaw on Sunday. Dicky Pride is the bubble boy, after a T30 at the Simmons Bank left him in 37th in the standings. Ken Tanigawa is next on the list in 38th.

Former PGA Tour pros Paul Goydos (39), Thongchai Jaidee (40), Stephen Ames (41), Robert Karlsson (43), David Duval (44), Heath Slocum (45) and Rod Pampling (46) also came up short of earning their full PGA Tour Champions cards for 2026.

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