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ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. -- Matt Kuchar finished his 19th consecutive season on the PGA Tour and ended it at No. 118 in the FedEx Cup, which would have been enough to keep his full card any year but this one, with the tour dropping the cutoff to the top 100 instead of the top 125. The next step for the 47-year-old Kuchar would seem to be taking one of his exemptions for career money, only it's not that simple. This is a different PGA Tour from when he first joined in 2002. There are eight signature events, four majors, The Players Championship and three FedEx Cup playoff events. Kuchar goes into 2026 not eligible for any of them. "I don't know how many starts I'll get," Kuchar said after he finished T-67 at the RSM Classic. "I don't know if using an exemption will get me any different starts. It's a tricky one. It's not going to get you into any elevated events." The question is whether his conditional status as No. 118 in the FedEx Cup will get him into roughly the same number of events as taking a career money exemption. "We're in somewhat unchartered territory," he said. "I'm guessing they've run the numbers, but I don't know how well their scenarios work out." PGA Tour officials estimate that players between No. 101 and No. 110 in the FedEx Cup -- they keep that ranking all year -- will get into about 16 of the 19 tournaments, and then have all of the FedEx Cup Fall except for Japan. Kuchar is eight spots below that group, and subject to drop if he doesn't play well out of the gates. He has time for his two exemptions. Even in this era of big purses, Kuchar has played so well for so long that he is No. 15 in career earnings at $61,538,738. That's just over $15.4 million ahead of the player at No. 25, so waiting another year to take the top 25 exemption won't cost him. That's what Kuchar will have to sort out in the next month before the Sony Open in Hawaii. Kuchar had only one top-10 finish this year, a tie for fifth in the John Deere Classic, but he missed only two cuts in 18 starts. "It's not the 2025 that I hoped for. It was a frustrating year," Kuchar said. "I think I missed only two cuts, but I didn't seem to put together the weeks where you hit it well and putt it well."
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