PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Emma Springer held 1-year-old daughter Annie aloft as if she was Simba in “The Lion King,” smiled and said, “Baby, we’re celebrating tonight and you have no idea why!”
The reason is quite simple: husband Hayden Springer is PGA Tour bound for the first time. The 26-year-old, who played on PGA Tour Canada this season, shot 1-under 69 at Dye’s Valley at TPC Sawgrass on Monday. That was good enough to finish at 8-under 272 and T-4 and earn one of five PGA Tour cards for the 2024 season.
After a decade of solely awarding varying levels of Korn Ferry Tour membership, final stage of the 2023 PGA Tour Q-School marks the first time since 2012 there were tour cards on the line. The next 40 finishers and ties are exempt for multiple reshuffles of the 2024 Korn Ferry Tour season, guaranteeing them between eight to 12 starts depending on their finish. The next 20 finishers and ties earned exempt status for the Latin America Swing of the 2024 PGA Tour Americas season in addition to conditional Korn Ferry Tour status. All remaining finishers outside the aforementioned categories earned conditional Korn Ferry Tour and PGA Tour Americas membership for 2024.
Springer entered the week with full Korn Ferry Tour status after topping the 2023 PGA Tour Canada’s season-long Fortinet Cup, but he’s skipping straight to the big leagues along with Mexico’s Raul Pereda, Trace Crowe, Blaine Hale Jr., and medalist Harrison Endycott.
Springer’s story was all the more remarkable because just over a month ago, on Nov. 13, his oldest daughter, Sage, died at age 3. She was prenatally diagnosed with Trisomy 18, a developmental disorder stemming from an extra chromosome.
What a moment for Hayden Springer ❤️
On Nov. 13, his 3-year-old daughter, Sage, passed away after battling Trisomy 18.
Just a month later, Springer is headed to the PGA TOUR. https://t.co/QcdmHajA33 pic.twitter.com/lNObh2M2lk
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) December 18, 2023
Springer said he thought of Sage several times during the final round.
“It’s happy thoughts,” he said. “It’s kind of one of those things that I think about her, and I just think about her smile. Like that’s the thing that I can just close my eyes and think about her smiling, and it’s kind of a grounding, kind of gets you back to neutral.”
Springer’s wife was greenside at 18 with Annie in her stroller but when she started crying, Emma wheeled her away. Hayden’s dad took over so Emma, who played on the women’s team at Texas Tech, could witness him seal the deal with a 2-putt par at 18. Three front-nine birdies lifted Springer into solid position to finish in the top 5. But he made bogeys at Nos. 11 and 12 to move into shakier ground. A birdie at the par-3 14th gave him a cushio again.
“Bouncing back and making birdie there definitely kind of got me back into it, got me back on the right track,” he said.
But he drove into the water at 17 and made bogey, which meant he needed to avoid the water off the tee at 18. As his father put it, “Can you make it any harder?”
“I’ve worked essentially my whole life to get into this position, and you dream about it,” said Springer, who began playing U.S. Kids events at age 8. “It’s like you don’t know exactly when that day will come, but today is the day.”
Here’s the story of the four other newly minted PGA Tour members.