Tag: Q School

Korn Ferry Tour announces changes, record 30 PGA Tour cards available

Beginning next year, 30 PGA Tour cards will be awarded to the top players on the Korn Ferry Tour Points List at season’s end.

When PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan announced significant changes coming to the future Tour schedule, he failed to mention how the Korn Ferry Tour, the primary feeder system to the big leagues, would be impacted.

On Tuesday, those changes were revealed. Beginning next year, 30 PGA Tour cards will be awarded to the top players on the Korn Ferry Tour Points List at season’s end. KFT President Alex Baldwin touted the increase of five PGA Tour cards from 25 as “yet another sign our mission to produce the next generation of PGA Tour stars is working.”

The additional five PGA Tour cards available via the Korn Ferry Tour were announced in concert with widespread changes to the PGA Tour’s qualification process, including that 10 Tour cards would be awarded to the top performers on the DP World Tour.

For the first time in a decade, Q-School will offer PGA Tour status to the top five finishers and ties.

“Bringing back the awarding of PGA Tour cards at Q-School will be exciting for our fans, membership, and potential new membership,” Baldwin added. The Tour cards available via Q-School and the DP World Tour will first be awarded in 2023 for the 2024 PGA Tour season.

That means the Korn Ferry Tour Finals will no longer be a competition for Tour cards between the top 75 on the Korn Ferry Tour and Nos. 126-200 in the FedExCup standings. Beginning in 2023, the four-event Korn Ferry Tour Finals will serve as the culmination of the Korn Ferry Tour season, where members will compete for increased purses and points allocations. The four Finals events will feature $1.5 million purses and award 600 points to each winner. The other 22 events on the schedule will have a minimum purse of $1 million and award 500 points to winners. The 2023 Korn Ferry Tour season is scheduled to run from January to October.

“The additional Tour cards available and reimagined Korn Ferry Tour Finals will properly reward more players for season-long success,” Baldwin said. “Stretching our season into October while maintaining a 26-event schedule will allow us to compose the best possible tournament calendar with natural breaks, peak golf course conditions, as well as providing graduates with time to prepare for their transition to the PGA Tour.”

One nice perk will stay the same: the No. 1 player on the 2023 Korn Ferry Tour Points List will continue to earn an exemption into the following season’s Players Championship, as well as the following season’s U.S. Open Championship.

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Beginning this year, players must now turn professional to compete in LPGA Q-Series

The LPGA has announced a significant change to its Q-Series criteria.

The LPGA has announced a significant change to its Q-Series criteria.

Beginning in 2022, players must turn professional in order to compete for LPGA membership.

Those who qualify for Q-Series through Stage II of Q-School receive Epson Tour status. Amateurs may still compete as an amateur on the Epson Tour or must turn professional for the chance to earn an LPGA card.

An LPGA release says the decision followed feedback from the LPGA membership and the college coaching community.

“LPGA Q-Series is the final stage to competing on the LPGA Tour, which is a fully professional tour that requires that its Membership competes as professional athletes,” said Ricki Lasky, Chief Tour Business and Operations Officer for the LPGA. “Ensuring all competitors have made the same choice to be a professional player elevates the Q-Series competition and creates the most appropriate options for athletes at different stages of their careers. Providing Epson Tour status to those athletes who advance through Q School but choose to retain their college eligibility provides an appropriate pathway for those players to complete their college season or career and then immediately compete on the Epson Tour.”

There’s no question that amateurs competing with the safety net of going back to college enter Q-Series under a completely different set of circumstances to those professionals fighting to earn back their cards.

This change also forces college players to make a big decision, rather than enter Q-Series with a wait-and-see approach.

The LPGA instituted a change in 2018 that allowed college players the opportunity to defer their cards until after the spring season. Of the 16 amateur players who earned LPGA membership, only Jennifer Kupcho and Maria Fassi chose to defer. Kupcho, of course, won the Augusta National Women’s Amateur that spring and Fassi won the NCAA Championship at home in Arkansas.

Prior to that, amateurs had to turn pro within a matter of minutes of Q-School’s completion to accept an LPGA card. This sometimes led to a panicked, spur-of-the-moment emotional decision.

“I don’t know that there will ever be a perfect solution to the qualifying process,” said Arkansas head coach Shauna Taylor, “but it will be interesting to see how this impacts college golf and LPGA Q-Series. I do know that we are all united and passionate about growing women’s golf at all levels. I am sure the LPGA has done its diligence in trying to find the best solution to serve its members, both future and present, by making this change to Q-Series.”

The 2022 LPGA Q-Series will be held over eight rounds in consecutive weeks Dec. 1-4 at Magnolia Grove (Crossings and Falls Courses) in Mobile, Alabama. The second week will be held Dec. 8-11 at Highland Oaks (Highlands and Marshwood Courses) in Dothan, Alabama.

Players finishing inside the top 45 and ties following the conclusion of the cumulative eight rounds of Q-Series will receive LPGA Tour status for the following season. All players finishing outside the top 20 and ties will also receive Epson Tour status.

Stage I of 2022 LPGA Q School will be held Aug. 18-21 at Mission Hills Country Club (Dinah Shore and Palmer Courses) in Rancho Mirage, California, and Shadow Ridge Golf Club in Palm Desert, California. Stage II will be held Oct. 18-21 at Plantation Golf and Country Club (Bobcat and Panther Courses) in Venice, Florida.

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Rob Labritz among five golfers to earn 2022 tour cards at PGA Tour Champions Q-School

Rob Labritz, twice the low PGA professional at the PGA Championship, won medalist honors at PGA Tour Champions Qualifying Tournament Friday and is among five golfers who earned 2022 tour cards. Labritz, the director of golf at the GlenArbor Golf …

Rob Labritz, twice the low PGA professional at the PGA Championship, won medalist honors at PGA Tour Champions Qualifying Tournament Friday and is among five golfers who earned 2022 tour cards.

Labritz, the director of golf at the GlenArbor Golf Club in Bedford Hills, New York, was low pro at the 2010 and 2019 PGA Championships. He won Q school by three shots. He finished 17 under after posting scores of 65-71-67-64 at TPC Tampa Bay. Labritz has played in the PGA Championship eight times but beyond that, he has appeared in just three PGA Tour events in his career.

David Branshaw and Thongchai Jaidee finished tied for second at 14 under. Jaidee’s third-round 63 was the best score of the week. Roger Rowland finished solo fourth at nine under, while Tom Gillis was solo fifth at eight under.

The week started with 79 golfers vying for fully exempt status into open, full-field events on the 2022 PGA Tour Champions schedule. The next 25 finishers Friday are now eligible to compete in open qualifiers in Champions in 2022. Notable names among that group include: Guy Boros (T-6), Skip Kendall (T-10), Mario Tiziani (T-1), Matt Gogel (T-14) and Paul Stankowski (T-14).

Tiziani is Steve Stricker’s brother-in-law and has caddied for Stricker on a few occasions.

Interesting names who came up short: Harrison Frazer (T-32), Omar Uresti (T-32), Olin Brown (T-44), Jonathan Kaye (T-47) and Frank Lickliter II (T-61).

Among those who withdrew during the final day included Carlos Franco, Jose Coceres and 70-year-old Dick Mast, who started on the PGA Tour Champions in 2001; he began his PGA Tour career in 1974.

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LPGA announces changes to Q-School calendar

The LPGA announced Thursday its three-stage qualifying schedule will be pushed back several months due to the coronavirus pandemic.

With the 2020 LPGA and Symetra Tour seasons suspended indefinitely, job security for 2021 is already in question.

On Thursday, the LPGA announced a revised qualifying schedule for this year, with its three-stage system being pushed back several months.

Stage I of LPGA Q-School is typically held in August at Mission Hills Country Club, site of the ANA Inspiration. This year, the event will move to the Bobcat and Panther Courses of Plantation Golf and Country Club in Venice, Florida, which typically hosts the second stage. The first stage will now be held Oct. 12-15. The tour is working to secure a third course.

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The second stage will now be held in November at a site that has yet to be announced. The format will not change for the first two stages.

The final stage, Q-Series, will now move to December but will not take place at Pinehurst Resort. For the past two years, Q-Series has been an eight-round grind held over two courses. This year it will be a 90-hole tournament contested over two courses in the span of one week with a cut after 72 holes.

The release also stated that criteria for all three stages “essentially remains the same.”

With the LPGA schedule likely moving back into December, this shift to host Q-Series later on the calendar makes perfect sense.

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Benjamin Poke takes control of European Tour Q-School 

At the halfway point, Denmark’s Benjamin Poke leads European Tour Q-School after carding four birdies and a bogey Sunday to sit at 12 under.

Denmark’s Benjamin Poke is in control of the European Tour Qualifying School at the halfway stage. The 27-year-old takes a two-shot lead into the final three days at Lumine Golf Club in Tarragona, Spain. The Danish professional is hoping to take the lead card of the 25 on offer for the 2020 European Tour.

Poke had four birdies and only one bogey in a 3-under par round of 69 on Lumine Golf Club’s Hills Course. He sits at 12-under par.

Lars van Meijel of The Netherlands lies in second place after a 7-under 65 that included six birdies and an eagle-two on the Hills Course’s par four 12th hole.

“It was nice to finish with a flurry of birdies at the end,” Poke said. “I was hitting greens from the start but leaving myself some long putts. By the time I got to the back nine, I was striking them better and hitting my approach shots a bit closer and I managed to take advantage of that over the closing holes.

“I haven’t really looked at the scoreboards this week or checked online after the round to see how I’m doing. I’ve been watching snooker over the last few days in the evening to take my mind off things.”

“It’s a new day tomorrow so I’m just going to try and approach things the same way, enjoy being out here playing. I’m looking forward to going out there and playing the next few days. I’m trying not to think about the top 25 at the moment as I can’t control what other players are doing. I can only try and control how I play, and we’ll see where it all ends up at the end of the week.”

Van Meijel is making his first appearance at Final stage, but looked comfortable in his surroundings on day three.

“It’s the first time I’ve played in Final Stage and it’s absurd to think there are still three rounds to go,” he said. “I’ll just keep playing one shot at a time, keep it relaxed and chilled, and then we’ll see.

“I feel confident. I’m just focussing on myself and trying to play the best golf I can. Then we’ll see where I end up.

“I made some small changes in the way I practice with a new coach and also, my childhood technical coach has made some small changes which have also clicked. I’m just trying to get better every day.”

First round leader John Catlin returned a second consecutive 73. The former University of New Mexico player sits on 4 under in a tie for 34th spot.

The top 70 and ties after the fourth round advance to the final two rounds, with the top 25 and ties after round six earning playing rights for the 2020 European Tour.

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Forging his own path, Chase Koepka won’t seek big brother’s advice at Q-School

Chase Koepka, the younger brother of Brooks Koepka, faces final qualifying for the Korn Ferry Tour next month near Orlando.

Following in the same field as a successful family member can be a mixed bag, as all three Baldwins known as “the other brother” can attest. A name can open doors but might also close minds, fueling assumptions about indolent coattail jockeys trying to shortcut their way to the big leagues.

Dru Love’s only status was conferred by birth, but he has ridden his family’s respected name to 18 PGA Tour starts, three times as many as he has made on the developmental circuits. On the reverse side of that ledger is another 25-year-old, Chase Koepka. He earned his status on both the Challenge and European Tours, and next month faces final qualifying for the Korn Ferry Tour. Success will bring him one step closer to joining his brother Brooks on the PGA Tour, but he isn’t planning to rely on his celebrated sibling for advice on tackling the four-round gauntlet at Orange County National near Orlando.

“He’s probably not the person I would lean on because he’s never really done well in Q-School,” Chase says with a laugh. “He knows that. He’s better at major championships than he is at Q-School.”

He did lean on his brother’s caddie though: Ricky Elliott piloted Chase through second stage qualifying recently in Texas. Koepka opened that decisive final round with a double bogey. “Well, better it happen on the first hole than on the 18th, right?” the experienced bagman said as they walked to the second tee.

“I’m looking at him and I say, ‘I’m not sure Rick!,’ ” Koepka recalls. “I was very upset at myself, but it was the perfect thing to say to get under my skin and make me laugh at the same time.” Playing the remaining holes 6-under par, Koepka battled through to the final stage.

The other Koepka-Elliott partnership has won four majors in the last couple of years, and the power of his last name has helped get Chase a couple of sponsor invitations on the PGA Tour, though he distantly trails Love in the Starts Gained Mooching category. He made cuts in Las Vegas and South Korea, which helped lift his world ranking by more than 350 places to 1,498th.

“I really don’t pay much attention to that,” he says of the ranking. Then he adds with a wry chuckle: “Obviously, it’s pretty easy to figure out where Brooks is at.”

Obviously. Just scroll up 1,497 spots.

The younger Koepka seems at ease with the inevitable comparisons to Brooks, who is four years his senior and whose footsteps he followed all the way to the unglamorous venues of Europe’s Challenge circuit. Whatever expectations he has felt burdened with are mostly self-inflicted, he says, owed to his own competitiveness rather than pressure to emulate his sibling. But he admits to having been worn down by the disappointments inherent in the grind of professional golf and life on the road.

“I’m willing to play wherever I can. As a golfer you have to do that,” he says. “I just didn’t do a very good job this year mentally. That’s completely on me. This is going to be my fourth year out here and I’ve had status on a tour since I turned pro. After three years, I should be able to figure out how I need to go about my business. I’m starting to do that.”

He has momentum heading to Q-School off solid play in Korea and in second-stage qualifying. “I got kicked in the teeth for the last year, but there’s so many positives I can take that I haven’t seen in a really long time,” he says. “It’s exciting to see where my game is starting to go.”

Koepka’s intended preparation included some minitour stops and entering Monday qualifiers for PGA Tour events in Mexico and Sea Island, Georgia. The latter is the Love family’s home tournament. Dru, who was eliminated from Korn Ferry qualifying at the second stage, will be in the field for the fourth time in the last five years.

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Tait’s Take: European Tour Qualifying School hopefuls face ultimate pressure

There are just 25 European Tour cards available for the 156 competitors at final stage. That means 131 are going to fail.

There’s a lot of pressure riding on this week’s European Tour event. No, not the $7.5 million Nedbank Golf Challenge, but the European Tour Qualifying School.

There is no pressure in Sun City. These guys have made so much money this season even their caddies are probably looking forward to buying some nice Christmas presents for their loved ones.

Zander Lombard was the last man into the Nedbank field. He’s earned €516,066.22 this season, $586,671.44 on today’s dollar exchange rate. The guys playing the Final Qualifying Stage at Lumine Golf Club in Tarragona, Spain November 15-20 dream of earning that sort of money.

Most of them won’t get the chance.

There are just 25 European Tour cards on offer for the 156 competitors at final stage. Put another way, 131 are going to fail.

Most Q-School rookies will already have frayed nerves at the prospect of trying to get a ticket for the world’s second-best tour. It might not pay them to look around at who they’re competing against.

There are multiple tour winners, players who flirted with major glory, seemingly can’t miss kids who made big noises in the amateur game still trying to find a European Tour foothold, and even a Ryder Cup player in the field.

Jamie Donaldson is the Ryder Cup player in question. He earned the winning point in the 2014 match at Gleneagles when he defeated Keegan Bradley 4-and-3. Those were halcyon days for the Welshman. He picked up his third European Tour victory that year and finished fourth on the Race to Dubai to better his fifth place the previous year.

The closest the affable Welshman has come to Ryder Cup action since Gleneagles is acting as an on-course commentator. To be fair, the 44-year-old has been hampered by a wrist injury that required surgery at the end of last year. However, he’s a salutary lesson that success in this game is ephemeral if your last name isn’t Woods, McIlroy, Koepka or Mickelson.

Gonzalo Fdez-Castano, Matteo Manassero, Darren Fichardt, Michael Hoey, Marc Warren, Gregory Havret and Lee Slattery are among those joining Donaldson as multiple European Tour winners. Fdez-Castano has seven victories. Fichardt and Hoey have five and 2009 British Amateur champion Manassero four, including the 2013 BMW PGA Championship.

Three-time winner Havret finished runner-up to Graeme McDowell in the 2010 U.S. Open.

Pitting their talents against this experienced group is a plethora of young talent that includes Ireland’s Paul Dunne, Scott Gregory of England, South Africa’s Wilco Nienaber and Australian David Micheluzzi. Dunne won the 2017 British Masters, returning a closing 61 to hold off a charging Rory McIlroy. That was supposed to be Dunne’s stepping stone to more wins and a possible 2018 Ryder Cup spot.

Gregory, like Manassero, is a recent British Amateur champion who played on the 2017 Walker Cup alongside Robert Macintyre, the player he defeated to win the 2016 British Amateur. Micheluzzi reached world number two on the World Amateur Golf Ranking and is a player to watch out for. So is Nienaber. He qualified for the match play stages of the 2018 British Amateur as leading qualifier, and is arguably a better prospect than compatriot and that year’s champion Jovan Rebula.

The survival of the fittest contest that is the Qualifying School not only means only 25 and ties can qualify for the European Tour, but those who do probably won’t survive. Just seven of the 27 card earners at last year’s Q-School kept their cards this year. Seven players of the 33 graduates in 2017 kept their cards in 2018.

U.S. citizen Kurt Kitayama is a seminal lesson that Q-School persistence can pay off. He came through all three stages last year and has two European Tour wins to his name. His playoff loss in last week’s Turkish Airlines Open saw him move to 11th on the Race to Dubai with €1.67 in earnings, approximately $1.8 million.

It costs €2,030, or $2,235, to enter Q-School. Twenty-two hundred dollars for the chance to win $1.8 million might seem like a good investment. However, for most it will just be more money spent chasing a dream that probably won’t come true.

Pressure? The ultimate pressure can be found every year at the Qualifying School.

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