At the RSM Classic, the final event of the PGA Tour’s fall season, there are plenty of cruel facts to go around. They are the bitter fruits at a tournament where each year, players go home with the knowledge that they’ve lost their tour cards and face an uncertain uphill climb to get them back again.
Justin Lower was one of the first victims on Friday. He came in ranked 114th in FedEx points, with no status for 2026, and needed a superb tournament to break into the top 100 and pull off a late miracle. Lower played decently, shooting 69-68 for a five-under total, but that was two shots shy of making the cut. That meant a guaranteed loss of full status for next season, and when the 36-year-old faced the media, he seemed ready to speak a few clipped words and leave … at first.
“I’m just pretty pissed off, to be honest,” he began. “I don’t really have anything else to say. Anything I seem to say or anytime I speak my mind, people tend to not like it, so I’m just not going to say a whole lot.”
Lower was referencing the fact that he’ll now finish in a zone, between 101 and 125, that would have conferred full status just a year ago, before the tour changed the qualifying number. Lower doesn’t like the change, but he doesn’t blame it—he conceded that he had a “sh—y” year and referenced his poor putting and a 27-over performance at the U.S. Open. Still, he said, he doesn’t like the direction the tour is going.
The questions kept coming, and Lower kept talking.
“My life is about to change dramatically in about like three, four months. I have twins on the way,” he said. “I have no idea what to expect. So that’s really all I’m thinking about right now along with how I can improve in the game of golf and how I can prolong my career.”
A reporter then pointed out that it was never a given that Lower, an unheralded player from NAIA Malone University, would ever have made it this far in the first place. That’s when he broke down, and you can watch his emotional response here:
"I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to say. I need to figure out how to get better."
After missing the cut @TheRSMClassic to lose his exempt status, @justinlower_1 's emotions tell his story. pic.twitter.com/4Cx4tsk2C1
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) November 21, 2025
Lower referenced the tragic 2005 car crash that took the lives of his father Tim and brother Chris on their way to picking him up at a golf course. He toiled in obscurity early in his career, winning the NAIA individual championship in 2010, but not earning his tour card until 2021. He’s been able to keep that card until now (and has been a vocal critic of the format changes long before this week). But in 2026 he’ll have to hope to earn starts via his new conditional status, and that he can play well enough to capitalize. It’s not a career ender, but as his reaction proved, it makes everything significantly harder.
Come Sunday, we’ll see dramatic stories on the other end of the spectrum, with players holding on to their cards with Sunday rallies, prolonging their time in the big leagues. But for every triumph, there’s a heartbreak, and Justin Lower’s was about as visceral as they come. As he said, just before making one of the sport’s toughest exits, “this game is really hard.”
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
