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 Tim Walton, Director of Golf, PGA West Photo by GM Pinkston |
Almost to a man, touring pros will tell you PGA Q-School was the toughest golf they ever played. Consisting of fourteen grueling rounds, it is conducted in three stages over a six-week period and requires the mastering of at least four different golf courses across the nation. It is 252 holes of competition against the best players in the world in which a single miscue can make the difference between being admitted to the PGA Tour or going home empty-handed.
November 18th through 23rd, the final stage of the 1998 enactment of this drama will play out over the rolling fairways and small well protected greens of PGA West and the La Quinta Golf Resort. The PGA West competitions will be conducted over the Tom Weiscoff course. At La Quinta, the hopefuls will be confronted by the Pete Dye Dunes course. Practice rounds will be played at both courses on the 16th and 17th. The leading contenders for qualification onto the PGA Tour will play their final round at the tournament host PGA West course on the 23rd. The entire event, practice rounds included, is open to the public and spectators are encouraged. There is no fee for admission.
What's at stake in this tournament is admission into the select group of approximately 200 players entitled to compete on the PGA Tour. Not too many years ago, any member of the PGA could attempt to qualify for that week's event by entering the Wednesday qualifying round that preceeded each tournament. With the advent of the all-exempt tour the Wednesday qualifiers vanished into history. Today, the elite few are drawn only from the the previous year's top 125 PGA money-winners, the top fifteen players from the Nike Tour and the fifty who make it through Q-school. Another handful return on ten-year exemptions earned from previous wins in the TPC or the PGA Championship.
"A touring pro usually gets hot for one, maybe two, weeks a year," says Tim Walton, Director of Golf at PGA West. "If he's lucky, during that time he might win one tournament and finish well in another. If he does, he's made it financially for the year and assured his being back to play again the next. To make it through Q-School you have to play that well every round for six weeks straight."
Some 4,000 players Teed it up in the school's first stage, played the first week of October. By sundown on the last day at PGA West only 50 will have earned their cards--and for the typical aspiring pro trying to play his way onto the tour through all three stages, that's the good news. The bad is that of the 168 men who will start the final round not all will have come from the original 4,000.
A goodly number will come straight to the Coachella Valley on exemptions allowing them to by-pass the first two stages. Now Added to the group Joe Average qualifier must confront in his attempt to become one of the chosen 50 will be a number of seasoned PGA and Nike Tour pros. This includes PGA players who missed the magic 125 mark on this year's money list but finished in the top 150, and a few Nike pros exempted via a similar system on their tour.
The eligible spots from the current PGA list are occupied by the likes of Doug Tewell, Larry Rinker, Mark Brooks, Phil Blackmar, Bob Gilder, Rick Fehr, David Frost and D.A. Weibring. Who in this group might be playing in the qualifier is not yet known. But those not otherwise exempt for next year are not likely to give up their place on the tour without a fight.
The Golf Channel will televise the tournament's Saturday and Sunday rounds. Coverage will primarily be of the leaders playing at the PGA West course but will also include some of the action at La Quinta.
"The TV camera's little red light will just add to the pressure these guys will be under and make it feel even more like playing in a regular PGA event," says Walton. "Preparing them for that sort of thing is what Q-School is all about."
© Gary M. Pinkston, 1998.
