The idea for a senior tour grew out of a highly successful event in 1978, the Legends of Golf at Onion Creek Club in Austin, Texas, which featured competition between two-member teams of some of the greatest older golfers of that day.

Until 2015, the season-ending Charles Schwab Cup Championship, with a limited field of 36, was played over 72 holes with no cut.

The top 72 players on the money list automatically qualify for the first playoff event, the PowerShares QQQ Championship.

The playoff field is cut to 54 for the Dominion Charity Classic, and finally to 36 for the Charles Schwab Cup Championship.

After the Dominion Charity Classic, the field's points are reset so that each of the remaining 36 players can theoretically win the Charles Schwab Cup, and that each of the top five players can clinch the Charles Schwab Cup by winning the final event.

Current PGA Tour Champions competitor and TV golf analyst Bobby Clampett has called the process for determining the field in tour events "the most complicated system known to man," and added that "[n]ot a single player even understands it fully.

[10] The top player on that list after the 2023 season is Phil Mickelson, who has won a combined career total of $98,087,853.