PGA Tour's Policy Board wraps up meetings

• By Rex Hoggard
• Oct 18, 2011 7:01 PM ET

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. – The PGA Tour’s Policy Board wrapped up two days of year-end meetings on Tuesday in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., without much fanfare.

A proposal to make the Nationwide Tour the lone avenue to PGA Tour membership via a three- or four-event “finals series” was among the items on the agenda but it doesn’t seem likely the plan will be implemented soon.

On Tuesday at Disney, Paul Goydos, one of four player directors on the Policy Board, said he is not allowed to discuss specific “board” issues, but he did say the plan is still being studied.

Goydos – who was joined at the meeting by fellow player directors Davis Love III, Zach Johnson and Steve Stricker – said concerns that the proposal, which would make Q-School the avenue to Nationwide Tour membership, would make it harder for young players to gain Tour status have been addressed.

“Look at Bud Cauley,” said Goydos of the 21-year-old who became the sixth player to qualify for the Tour straight out of college without going to Q-School. “He played his way onto the Tour and that will not change. Even if he would have finished 151 (in earnings) he would have an opportunity to go to (the finals series) and be seeded.”

How those players – the top 75 on the Nationwide Tour money list and Nos. 126 to 200 in Tour earnings – are seeded appears to still be under review, and Goydos conceded that finding a consensus for seeding the Nationwide Tour money leader and No. 126 in Tour earnings, for example, will be difficult.

“Is there a perfect system everybody is going to sign off on? Probably not,” he said. “Can you find a system that is equitable? Yes.”

 According to other sources a plan to increase the number of FedEx Cup points awarded at opposite-field events will likely increase. In 2011, Tour stops in Mississippi, Mexico, Reno and Puerto Rico awarded half the number of total points (250) as stand-alone events. That number could increase by 50 points in 2012.