Tag: Harrison Endycott

Schupak: PGA Tour Q-School, where money took a backseat to childhood dreams being achieved

Heartache and jubilation both made an appearance on Monday at PGA Tour Q-School.

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Heartache and jubilation both made an appearance Monday at PGA Tour Q-School.

For one week at host courses Dye’s Valley at TPC Sawgrass and Sawgrass Country Club the greed that has consumed professional golf gave way to job seekers desperate to improve their status for next season. Money took such a backseat that on the walk to scoring veteran pro Erik Compton asked his caddie after finishing T-38, “Did I make anything?”

“You made enough for extra guac and double barbacoa at Chipotle tonight,” he said.<

For the record, Compton banked $6,214.28 from a purse of $550,000, which should cover that Chipotle order but the purse equaled what Nick Taylor made for finishing 25th out of 30th at the Tour Championship in August. Here’s the rub: what Compton really cared about was hanging on to the top 40 and eight guaranteed Korn Ferry Tour starts to begin the 2024 season.

“If I get eight starts at the beginning of the year and don’t have to stress about it, I can get a (full) card back,” said Compton, breaking into a smile and with renewed hope of a clear path back to the PGA Tour for 2025.

Julian Suri, who grew up in Jacksonville before going to Duke, needed a par at the last hole at Dye’s Valley to earn eight starts too. But he made triple bogey and is relegated to conditional status and uncertainty over how many starts are in his future on KFT.

More Monday meltdowns

Wesley Bryan was in the hunt for one of the five full Tour cards but shot 79 and will have to rely primarily on past champions status next season instead. Spencer Levin, 39, entered the final day T-3 and played in the last group, but he airmailed the ninth green and pitched 12 feet past the hole. There were 28 spectators ringing the green and as Levin’s par putt stopped short of the hole, one fan clapped. With that few fans, Levin heard it and he glared daggers at the spectator.

It was Levin’s fifth bogey of the day but he seemed more enraged about the clap. As one of his playing partner’s lined up his putt, Levin continued to express his disgust at the fan. He shot 73 and fell to T-10, which did him no good as he already had full status for next season on KFT.

There would be no one clapping for him at 18.

Q-School will mess with your head

It makes your palms sweaty and your stomach turn. Kevin Velo, who recorded just two top-25s on KFT this season and finished dead last at the Nationwide Championship to end his regular season, had to go back to First Stage but fought his way back to Final Stage and finished T-21. It wasn’t enough to earn a PGA Tour card but it beat the alternative.

“Losing your job is one of the worst things in the world that can happen to you,” said Velo.

Imagine having to wait an extra day for the final round after a storm washed out play Sunday. Velo tossed and turned at night and turned to YouTube around 3 a.m., scrolling videos of a guy who unclogs drains for a living and of others mowing lawns.

“They’re super-satisfying,” he said.

Whatever gets you through the night.

The five PGA Tour cards, which were offered to top finishers for the first time since 2012, were the carrots dangled to attract a field of 165, who were guaranteed at least conditional KFT status by making it this far. As Sam Saunders said, “We’d have been there if there was one PGA Tour card.”

Childhood dreams achieved

Each of the five players who earned cards fittingly played on a different tour last season:

  • Harrison Endycott gets to go back to the PGA Tour with full status
  • Trace Crowe finished 38th on Korn Ferry Tour
  • Hayden Springer topped the money list on PGA Tour Canada
  • Raul Pereda spent the season on PGA Tour Latinoamerica and showed he had game at the Mexico Open
  • Blaine Hale Jr. toiled on the mini tours

Each had an emotional story of their journey to the big leagues but none struck the chords like that of Springer, whose 3-year-old daughter Sage died on Nov. 13. How he kept it together to perform the way he did at Q-School, we’ll never know. His caddie, Michael Burns? Not so much. He burst into tears on 18.

“My heart has never beated faster in my entire life,” Burns said.

Springer’s story ranks with Erik van Rooyen winning in Cabo for his dying friend and Camilo Villegas’s win in Bermuda, his first since his young daughter died, as the feel-good story of the year in golf.

Ecstasy and agony, Cinderella stories and nightmare finishes. Q-School had it all — except for talk about money.

Meet the five golfers who earned their 2024 PGA Tour tour cards at Q-School

The final stage of the 2023 PGA Tour Q-School marks the first time since 2012 there were tour cards on the line.

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.

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.

Justin Lower’s rollercoaster ride of emotions continues and Danny Willett hires ‘a tall Yoda’ among the 5 things we learned during the third round of the Fortinet Championship

“I’m sure I’ll be nervous, for sure…I mean, it’s why we play.”

Justin Lower’s rollercoaster ride of emotions continues.

The 33-year-old journeyman pro bogeyed two of his first seven holes but rallied with five birdies, including one at the last to sign for 3-under 69 at Silverado Resort’s North Course in Napa, California. It was good enough to improve to 13-under 203 and take a one-stroke lead over defending champ Max Homa and former Masters champ Danny Willett heading into the final round of the Fortinet Championship.

“It was tough out there today, it was a little breezy, greens getting firmer and firmer,” Lower said. “I just really just tried to keep it in the fairway and give myself as many birdie looks as possible.”

Some of those birdies even have come from off the green. Lower chipped in for birdie for the third time in three rounds at the fourth hole on Saturday.

Lower has taken one circuitous journey to his first final-round pairing on the PGA Tour. He attended Q-School six times, missed earning his card by a single shot in 2018, and needed to pitch to a foot from 30 yards to save par at the final hole at the 2021 Korn Ferry Tour Championship in Indiana to secure his playing privileges for the first time. Lower still wasn’t sure if he’d done enough to earn the last card until his fellow pros and caddies showered him with beer and champagne. When he finally grabbed hold of his coveted PGA Tour card, Lower said, “It’s heavier than I thought it would be.”

His rookie season had more lows than highs, beginning with a missed cut in Napa at last season’s kick off event.

“I left this course last year kind of in shock, honestly. I was like, God, if this is how the Tour is, I need to get a lot better very quickly,” he recalled.

In August, at the Wyndham Championship, he needed to two putt from 61 feet at the final hole to make the FedEx Cup playoffs and keep his card. He took three putts and gave a teary-eyed interview afterwards.

But when six players defected to LIV Golf, Lower was granted exempt status for next season. So far, he’s taking advantage of it. He shot a career-best 63 on Thursday and has the 54-hole lead at a Tour event for the first time. He could crush his best Tour finish to date — a T-10 at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, the two-man team event — but there also are nine players within four shots of his lead.

“I’m sure I’ll be nervous, for sure, but just part of it,” Lower said. “I mean, it’s why we play. Yeah, it’s just, I don’t know, playing on the PGA Tour with a chance to win, it’s pretty cool.”

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