It”s pretty much a given that golf is a difficult game to play. In fact, I”d be pretty hard-pressed to remember the last time someone stated they had mastered the game. With all the money that is at stake, you have to believe that playing professional golf is even more difficult. There are probably about 5,000 extremely talented professional golfers in the world today who, with the right break, could find a place on the PGA Tour.
That pressure will be magnified during the next month for close to 200 professional golfers. The PGA Tour concludes the 2009 season at Disney World in Orlando this weekend. When the final putt drops on Sunday afternoon, 125 golfers will be exempt for the 2010 campaign. The conclusion of the Nationwide Tour”s calendar year in early November resulted in its top 25 money winners finding a home in 2010 on golf”s biggest stage. Finally, another 25 golfers will work their way through the grueling ordeal this is Q School in December at Bear Lakes in Florida and receive a 2010 PGA Tour card.
Yet for every Nationwide and Q School survivor, there is a 2009 card-carrying member of the tour who will either find himself demoted to AAA status on the Nationwide, or without a regular place to play at all. If you finish somewhere between 126 and 150 on the money list, then you can get conditional status on the PGA Tour. That means that after the top 125, the Nationwide graduates, and the Q School survivors take all the available tournament spots, if there”s anything left over, then you can get a space in that week”s tour event. The golfers in the conditional category play in about 15 tournaments annually, namely B-level events that play opposite the majors and the World Golf Championships as well as the Fall Finish Series tournaments.
It might seem strange to say, but this week”s 72-hole finale at Disney World has a lot more on the line than just the $4.7 million purse. For former majors champions, namely Rich Beem, David Duval and Todd Hamilton, it”s all about making the cut on Friday and going from their current status of bubble boys to fully exempt. The same is true for U.S. Open runner-up Ricky Barnes of Stockton, who sits at a very tenuous 121st on the money list.
For 50-somethings Michael Allen of the Bay Area and Tom Pernice Jr., it”s the end of a very fulfilling season. Allen is safely exempt for next year. Pernice is currently on the wrong side of the bubble. However, their year has been filled with some impressive senior moments. Allen won the Senior PGA Championship, a Champions Tour major, and Pernice broke through on the over-50 circuit when he won the SAS.
For Ricky Fowler, it”s become a totally unexpected “everything-on-the-line” weekend. Fowler was an amateur golfer in early September, playing on the victorious USA team in the Walker Cup. He turned professional after the Walker Cup and he”s made an immediate impact in just two PGA Tour events. He tied for second at the Frys.com Open and pocketed $440,000, and he tied for seventh at the Justin Timberlake event in Las Vegas, collecting $113,700 for his efforts. At the moment, he”s $70,000 out of 125th place. A high finish this weekend will guarantee Fowler a place on the PGA Tour for 2010. The last player to pull off this unusual feat was named Tiger Woods.
One of the sponsor exemptions into Disney World went to Haynes Snedeker, the older brother of tour veteran Brandt Snedeker. Haynes was the winner of the Golf Channel”s Big Break X: Michigan. Part of his prize package was a free pass into Disney World. Haynes will probably miss the cut, but this whole experience is a total bonus. Come Monday, he”ll be back on the bench doing his job as a municipal court judge.
A handful of familiar names find themselves behind the eight ball. Simply put, they need to win this weekend to get another year on tour. Former U.S. Amateur champ Colt Knost is 193rd on the money list. Last year he was a top-25 Nationwide Tour grad. Q School is definitely in his immediate future. The same is true of Tommy “Two Gloves” Gainey, a past Golf Channel Big Break winner. One year ago he came in second at Disney World behind Davis Love III. Now he is 202nd on the money list. Notah Begay II, a former teammate of Tiger Woods at Stanford and a two-time tour winner, advanced through Q School last year. Now he”s 222nd on the money list. Gainey and Begay also have their ticket stamped for Q School in December.
The 215th-ranked golfer on tour won”t be at Q School, however. John Daly, a former PGA and British Open champion, won”t get his card in 2010, just like he didn”t get one in 2008 or 2009. Yet Q School would be a waste of his time. Because he is still a fan favorite, Daly will be offered sponsor”s exemptions to about 20 tourneys next year. Sure, he won”t be able to tee it up at the Masters or the U.S. Open, but expect that he”ll be in the field at Memphis and the Quad Cities and a bunch of other B-level tournaments.
Finally, in the “what-a-difference-a-year-makes” category, the 157th-leading money winner last year, a tour rookie, returned to Q School in December of 2008. He had to shoot a final-round 66 to get his tour card right on the number. It all worked out quite well for him. That pro, Y.E. Yang of Korea, went on to win the Honda Classic in March and to shock the golf world in August when he beat Tiger Woods to win the final major of the year, the PGA Championship.
I wonder which experience was tougher on the golfing nerves of Yang? Was it the final round of the PGA Championship, or was it the final round of Q School? It is wise to recall that without the Q School success of last December, there never would have been a chance to win the PGA.
