Before 1983, when the all-exempt Tour was adopted, only the top 60 money-winners from the previous year were guaranteed spots in any tournament on the schedule. Everyone else had to play in the Monday-morning qualifiers to gain entry to the weekend’s event. Although the qualifiers back then determined about 50 percent of the tournament spots, it was a dog- eat-dog world, where good players on the way up met good players on the way down, and the journeymen, the dreamers, the hangers-on, and the hopeful—vied for the last few scraps.

In 1983, the Tour changed the rules and said that the top 125 money-winners could gain entry into any tournament they wished (except invitationals, such as The Masters). Once a player made it into the elite group, eligibility became easy sledding. Without having to worry about where one might be able to play, these 125 all-exempt golfers could instead cherry pick the tournaments and courses they liked most, expecting to earn enough in those events to keep within that 125-player limit by the end of the year. They could take time off, and if they had a bad week or so, they could sign up to play in some of the fall tournaments to catch up before year’s end. The all-exempt system has generated a generation of fat cats.

99 PGA Tour members earned more than $1MM last year.

FWIW, though, the status of the tour's rank and file does not in any way diminish Woods achievements. You could argue there are a lot more players today who week in and week out who can win a tournament than at any time in the tour's history. In other words, Tiger actually has MORE competition, not less, than Jack.

We see less consistency from those rivals, but the same could be said trying to compare a 10 team NFL with today's league, or MLB when it had 16 teams instead of twice that number.

Fact remains Hagen dominated the pros and Jones everybody he played against in their era. Nelson, Hogan, Snead, Palmer....they were the best amongst their peers. That is exactly what Tiger is, only his level of dominance is more prononounced than what our memory recalls. But I don't know that he is any more dominant than Bobby or Byron, nor do I feel his competition is any less.