USPGA Tour qualifying - clear as mud?
BY Bruce Young | 03 Jan 2013
If you are confused by the new arrangements in place in order to qualify for the USPGA Tour in 2014 and beyond then you are not alone.
The changes made for later in 2013 are a dramatic departure from what we have come to know as the traditional means of gaining access to what is the holy grail of world golf.
Let’s see if we can go some way towards further demystifying all of this.
The Q-School held in December of last year will be the last held in terms of providing a chance to gain direct access to the PGA Tour and, instead, a Tour School in late 2013 will provide access to only the Web.Com Tour from where players can hopefully play their way onto the PGA Tour after a year playing the secondary tour’s schedule.
During late August and the month of September a series of four events known as the Web.Com Tour Finals will be played, the fields for those events consisting of the leading 75 players from the Web.Com Tour money list and those players between 126 and 200 on the FedEx Cup points list.
The leading 25 players from the completed 22 event Web.Com Tour money list as of August 25th are guaranteed a 2014 PGA Tour card but they are still required to play the four event series in order to determine their priority ranking.
Another 25 cards will also be distributed to leading 25 players from the ’Finals’ series, not otherwise exempt. A player, having finished inside the top 25 over the regular season, could therefore finish last in the Four event Finals and still have a card for the PGA Tour in 2014, albeit a lowly one.
The leading money earner in the regular Web.Com Tour season is guaranteed full PGA Tour status in 2014 as will the leading money earner over the series of Finals.
It seems messy and it may be that it will be until many get their head around it but once the system has been through its initial year and the creases ironed out it should become the norm and accepted way to the PGA Tour – I think!
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