PGA Tour Qualifying Final Stage News
It is considered one of the truly tough tests in life. It is a long road travelled by few, it is what gives dreams the reality of possibility. This journey is PGA Tour Qualifying School. With the pre-qualification rounds starting out this year with a total of 450 players playing over 6 different golf courses around the country. These are the guys that must go through the toughest journey any man could ever relate to. Once successfully clearing the pre-qualification rounds, 4 rounds played in 4 days and only 229 players advancing, those successful have now gained entry into the first stage of PGA Tour Qualifying School, where the men are now truly separated from the boys.
Upon arrival at the first stage, you should surely have your guts checked at the gate, there is no room for any bogeys from here on out if you are expecting to become one of the newest members of the PGA Tour. The opening stage of q-school consists of 12 separate qualifying sites, again, located around the country. Now this is where it gets tough, with approximately 960 players challenging for 324 spots, this equals out to roughly 80 plus players at each of the 12 opening venues, allowing for approximately 27 from each site to move on to the second stage of this gruesome battle of will and heart. I hope your following as the numbers are going to get smaller and smaller as we go on.
Now remember those 324 players who navigated their way through the first stage, by the way which consisted of 4 rounds played in 4 days, they now will battle the elements once again in the second stage. Second Stage of PGA Tour Qualifying School consists of again, 6 sites and roughly 80 players at each site. But now each of the qualifiers is trying to gain a berth in to the 3rd and final stage and the catch is that there is only 20 spots available to move on from each of the 6 second stage sites. So now, lets do a small mathematical equation here: in the beginning there were 450 players for 229 spots available, those players merged into to first stage of q-school to start the Fall/Winter Classic with a total of 960 players. Once you move on to the final stage of q-school you are joining players that are exempt in to the field via tour exemptions and you are now a part of 163 players looking to gain the card. There are only 35 fully exempt PGA Tour cards available this year. In other words if you don't finish in the top 35 out of 960 players from around the world after playing 14 rounds of golf, you will not be the next player achieving his dream on the PGA Tour, oh, yeah and by the way, final stage is played in six days and in those six days there are six rounds to be played.
Good luck to all of the players this week in Palm Desert, California, may your hard work pay off.
Hit It Longer Golf Store Admin
