Tales From Q School

Heather Flyte — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 19:08:28 +0000

Paige Mackenzie

The most pressure-inducing shots in golf aren’t made to win majors — after all, a U.S. Open title can certainly define a career, but that second-place paycheck of $810,000 goes a long way towards salving your wounds. But when a shot can mean the difference between $40,000 and $400,000 in income for the coming year? That’s one that’ll start your knees knocking. Such is the case every December in the final stages of the PGA and LPGA Tour Qualifying Tournaments, where tomorrow’s stars and big names of the past come together in search of the little piece of plastic that determines a professional golfer’s net worth — a Tour card. Actually, that’s a bit of a misconception. What’s important isn’t the card itself, but rather the priority number it displays — the lower the number, the higher priority a golfer has for entering a given event on Tour in the coming year. The top-125 men and top-80 women on Tour each year have nearly fully exempt status. Everyone outside of those ranges receive varying degrees of priority for entry in the following year’s Tour events — the lower a golfer is down the money list, the lower their priority ranking and the fewer Tour events they will be able to enter, usually relegating said golfer to a Nationwide (for the men) or Futures (women) Tour event instead. The difference can be startling — at February’s season-opening PGA Nationwide Tour Panama Digecel Championship, only 13 of the 132 players who started the tournament took home paychecks larger than $8,000. That same weekend at the PGA Tour’s Buick Open, the smallest paycheck given to any of the 85 players who made the cut was $9,169. So it was that 2000 U.S. Open runner-up Bob May could be seen stalking the fairways of the PGA West Golf Complex in La Quinta, Calif., last December alongside Tacoma native Michael Putnam, each hoping to improve their priority status for the coming year. Nearly a continent away, the LPGA Tour held its own final qualifying round at the same time at LPGA International in Daytona Beach. Six days, hundreds of golfers, four golf courses … and only 45 guaranteed spots on Tour (25 plus ties for men, 20 for women). Now that’s pressure. So how did our Northwest favorites fare? Let’s take a look: TROY KELLY T-11th | 66-68-70-70-69-69 Bremerton native and 2002 UW grad will be eligible for most 2009 PGA Tour events. MICHAEL PUTNAM T-107th | 73-71-63-75-72-71 Third-round 63 was one of week’s best, but will be playing mostly Nationwide Tour events this year. JEFF GOVE T-132nd | 71-67-75-68-77-71 Made $290,000 on PGA Tour in 2008, but was still subject to qualifying. Placed third in first Nationwide event of ’09 to pocket $40,000. PAIGE MACKENZIE T-34th | 72-69-71-71-76 Final-round 76 cost the Yakima native nearly 45 spots on the priority list, from category 11 — nearly full membership — to the more uncertain category 15.

Cascade Golfer Online » Troy Kelly

Tales From Q School