When you come to think of it that is the secret of most of the great holes all over the world. They all have some kind of a twist. C.B. MACDONALD
Doug Ferguson says the pieces "are starting to come together" for a plan to end PGA Tour cards from Q-School in the name of trying to legitimize (and fund) the Nationwide Tour.
The final pieces are starting to come together in a plan that would merge the top 75 players from the Nationwide Tour with the 75 players from the PGA Tour who failed to qualify for the FedEx Cup playoffs. They would play a three-tournament series, and the top 50 would earn PGA Tour cards. The rest could go back to Q-school to try to earn status on the Nationwide Tour.
The current Q-School and Nationwide structures each requires one sentence.
Q-School: Write a check, survive three stages and you have a tour card.
Nationwide Tour: Finish in the top 25 and get your card.
Ferguson writes that policy board member Steve Stricker would like to see 10 spots at Q-School still saved for PGA Tour cards, but Stricker also partially endorses the tour's idea.
"I still think it would be nice if somebody had the opportunity to get a quick turn on tour. I believe, though, it's going to be better for a better player. It's going to bring out talent over a longer period of time. If I was a good player, I would love to have the whole year to prove myself for 50 spots."
Except that you work the whole year to prove yourself, yet your graduation status still comes down to a bizarre seeding and three-week window to ultimately prove yourself? It's kind of like asking a student to gets straight A's just to take the final, which they also have to earn an A on just to get a diploma.
The top 25 from the Nationwide Tour money list - players who previously would have automatically earned PGA Tour cards - would be seeded No. 1 through No. 25. The next seed would be shared by No. 26 on the Nationwide money list and No. 126 on the PGA Tour money list. The PGA Tour player would be assigned the same money as his counterpart from the Nationwide Tour.
Some of the early calculations have shown that top 25 would be virtually assured of finishing among the top 50 to earn their cards; and that anyone winning one of those three tournaments also would be a lock to earn a card.
Virtually assured.
Have we already forgotten how the FedExCup models panned out and how many times the formula has been changed?
So I ask, if the season long play is considered better, then why would you open the door to a "virtually assured" situation?
Oh right, money.
Jennifer Jacobs reports that Republican hopeful Mitt Romney took a jab at President Barack Obama for his upcoming Christmas vacation and expected multiple rounds of golf.
In a tele-town hall meeting tonight with Iowans, GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney criticized President Barack Obama as someone who “watches affairs and has not guided affairs.”
“The other day I understand that Chris Christie said that he was a bystander president. That he watches affairs and has not guided affairs,” Romney said during the 30-minute telephone call, referring to the governor of New Jersey, who has endorsed Romney.
“And in some respects, his idea of a ‘hands on’ approach to the economy is getting a grip on his golf club. He’s going off for 17 days in Hawaii,” Romney said.
Romney made the comments in this "tele-town hall" from his San Diego, uh, large home.
Thanks to reader Joel for Lynh Bui report suggesting that the City of Phoenix may essentially buy back Papago Golf Course after it had outsourced the restoration and management of Papago to "the Arizona Golf Foundation’s management arm because the city couldn’t afford to do it." And $10 million in debt later, it went into default.
Those close to the matter say Phoenix is looking to spend $1.5 million to $2 million to buy the debt from Compass Bank and take complete control of the golf course.
Phoenix already regained control over management of the golf course, which it is temporarily outsourcing to a private company. But if Phoenix bought the debt from Compass Bank, the city’s investment would retire the debt completely.
If Phoenix didn’t buy the debt, Compass Bank could sell the debt to another investment company or bank and the golf course would still be in debt of $10 million, just to another entity.
The unbylined AP story on Q-School winner Brendon Todd, who closed with 68.
Rex Hoggard writes about the Georgia grad's success and the incredible number of top players the program has produced of late.
In order, former Georgia players Brendon Todd (pictured above), Brian Harman, Harris English and Kevin Kisner earned Tour cards, and even Hudson Swafford, the final member of the Bulldog five-some at Q-School who missed his card by two strokes, could appreciate the achievement.
“We had seven guys on that team that could play anywhere week to week,” Swafford said. “Our qualifiers my freshman, sophomore, junior years were as intense as any event.”
And that’s saying something considering this year’s Fall Classic was as intense as any on record.
John Strege looks at the Q-School graduating class of 2012 with ages, career highlights and other notes, including some of the notables who missed out on getting a chance to make three, or if they're really lucky, four West Coast starts before the reshuffle.
Strege also notes that David Duval did not make it, along with Lee Janzen and Shaun Micheel. Duval was low major winner for the week at T70.
The PGATour.com folks also list the group, with face shots, college and their total number of tour starts. Bob Estes' 589 do stand out!
Sean Martin leads with the story of Tommy Biershenk who "was working on a North Carolina farm two years ago, earning $500 a week as he tried to keep his golf dreams alive." But he also notes this year's crop of Korean hopefuls, who sound ready to make some noise.
This is the second consecutive year that two 20-somethings from Korea earned PGA Tour cards. Sang-Moon Bae, No. 30 in the Official World Golf Ranking, and Noh, who’s ranked 101st, were the two top-ranked players in the field. Bae has won three Japan Tour titles this year. Noh won on the European Tour at age 19 and finished 30th at this year’s U.S. Open and Open Championship.
Their graduation came at the same site, PGA West, where Y.E. Yang earned his PGA Tour card at the 2008 Q-School.
Brian Wacker talks to a fortunate few survivors, including Biershenk, along with others who know both heartbreak and jubilation at making it.
The Australian PGA covers the Aussies who made it, including the amazing Jarrod Lyle.
The PGA Tour's excellent notebook from round 6 features a mix of stats and notes.
The final scoreboard for what is likely to be the second to last Q-School anyone pays attention to before the intended change to a Nationwide-only qualifier in 2013.
I so missed seeing Tiger in rugby shirts, but I was a bit shocked by seeing Donkey from Shrek and dancers at the end, including the one looking suspiciously like Charles Howell in drag.
The Ogilvy-Allenby fracas allowed two talented writers to open the history books and regale us with memories of golf's finest man and woman-spats.
John Huggan writing in Scotland On Sunday:
Other examples are not hard to find. Not so very long ago, the late Dave Hill and his fellow Champions Tour player, JC Snead, were to be found rolling around on the ground at the end of a practice range in a physical effort to resolve their latest dispute. Former US Ryder Cup player Corey Pavin had an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation with Golf Channel reporter Jim Gray before last year’s Ryder Cup matches at Celtic Manor in Wales. And it can’t have failed to escape the attention of many golf fans that there is a definite edge to the relationship “enjoyed” by world number two Rory McIlroy and the man right behind him on the rankings, Lee Westwood.
Peter Stone downplays the Ogilvy-Allenby imbroglio, shares the not-very-well-known tale of Americans Henry Ransom and Frank Strazza having a row, but also drops this little anecdote about another run-in the same night as the Ogilvy-Allenby war of words.
Around midnight at Fraser's, blood was spilled. American Rickie Fowler's caddie, a gridiron enthusiast, became involved in a difference of opinion with a rugby league man over which code handed out the biggest hits. They decided to settle the argument physically. The league chap laid a tackle on the American and then it was the American's turn with what they do in gridiron. The league guy (not known to our reliable witness) decked the caddie as he charged, and the caddie fell to the ground, splitting his head open.
Geoff Shackelford is a Senior Writer for Golfweek magazine, a weekly contributor to Golf Channel's Morning
Copyright © 2022, Geoff Shackelford. All rights reserved.
