Imagine being in Jared Wolfe’s golf shoes.
Since turning pro in 2010, he’s journeyed throughout the game’s lesser circuits in pursuit of his ultimate dream – earning membership on the PGA Tour. It was a struggle at times but Wolfe remained resolute in his quest and in January he captured his first title on the Korn Ferry Tour at the Bahamas Great Abaco Classic.
Graduation to the PGA Tour was well in hand. Now it’s on hold.
The COVID-19 global pandemic has stalled the world and halted play on every major golf tour. This week’s announcement of a new schedule beginning in mid-June for the PGA Tour and the Korn Ferry Tour offers hope. But the restart is far from certain and it remains undecided how playing status for players on the PGA Tour and Korn Ferry Tour will be determined for next season if the restart is delayed due to the coronavirus.
Normally, the top 25 on the Korn Ferry Tour points list after the final regular-season event – Wolfe is No. 6 – earn PGA Tour cards for the next season. The top 75 players also qualify for the three-tournament Korn Ferry Tour Finals, where they would be joined by 75 PGA Tour members who finished Nos. 126-200 on the FedExCup points list. From that postseason, the top 25 players also earn PGA Tour cards.
But the truncated season could force PGA Tour officials to adjust allocation of PGA Tour cards. Graduation could even be annulled.
Wolfe said he’s gone down a “rabbit hole” thinking about potential scenarios but his wife pulls him out of the proverbial abyss.
“I’m at peace with whatever happens,” Wolfe said.
A hybrid season for ’19, ’20, ’21?
The PGA Tour is set to return June 11-14 at the Charles Schwab Challenge in Texas. The PGA Tour would play 36 events – down from 49 last year. In a conference call this week, Andy Pazder, chief tournaments and competitions officer for the PGA Tour, said if 36 events are played, Tour officials and player directors on the policy board feel it would constitute a credible season.
But if there are further cancellations and/or postponements, a credible season would be in jeopardy and force the PGA Tour to make major status adjustments, including the possibility of a hybrid season covering 2019, 2020 and 2021.
“If there is a scenario where we carry eligibility from the PGA Tour over to the following season, that will likely have a profound impact on the Korn Ferry Tour eligibility system and could go as far as preventing promotions from the Korn Ferry Tour and their eligibility would then have to merge into their following season in 2021,” Pazder said. “We’ve had extensive conversations, and at this stage I can tell you that if we are able to resume at the Charles Schwab Challenge, playing nearly three-fourths of our season does give us great comfort in considering it a credible season. But we have not defined that threshold if we fall below X number of tournaments, then Y will happen.”
Six events have been played on the Korn Ferry Tour this season. The first event back for the tour is a new tournament set to begin June 11 on the Dye’s Valley Course at TPC Sawgrass near the PGA Tour’s headquarters in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. Ten events would follow. Without further interruptions of play, the Korn Ferry Tour would have a 17-tournament schedule, down from 28 on the original schedule. Would that be enough to hand out promotions?
“We’ve looked at one option where there would be a hybrid model, I’d call it, where we would reward all of the players on the PGA Tour this year based on their play but find a way to also, for those who didn’t make the top 125, retain some type of access into the next season,” Tyler Dennis, chief of operations for the PGA Tour, said in a conference call. “And then that would flow down to the Korn Ferry Tour and how the graduates would morph between their seasons in a hybrid way, as well. We’re still in the process of analyzing that and evaluating options with our PAC and player directors.”
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