PGA Tour hopefuls are ditching school this year.
The tour has gone to a new method to determine qualifiers for the 2013-2014 PGA Tour season, and it starts this week with the Web.com Tour’s Hotel Fitness Championship in Fort Wayne, Ind.
Gone is the PGA qualifying school format used in past years where golfers had to finish among the top 25 and ties at Q-school or finish among the top 25 on the Web.com Tour’s money list to earn a spot on the PGA Tour.
In its place is the Web.com Tour Finals, a series of four tournaments that will determine who receives PGA Tour cards for next season. It is essentially like Q-school, but stretched out over four weeks instead of six days.
The qualifying tournaments are:
The Hotel Fitness Championship, which will be played today through Sunday in Fort Wayne, Ind.
The Chiquita Classic on Sept. 5-8 in Davidson, N.C.
The Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship on Sept. 12-15 in Columbus, Ohio,
The Web.com Tour Championship on Sept. 26-29 in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.
All four events will have a field of approximately 159 players and a $1 million purse, with the winner receiving $180,000, and all four will be televised on The Golf Channel.
The Web.com Tour Finals is for players who were No. 126 to No. 200 in the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup standings and the top 75 players from the Web.com Tour money list.
Everyone starts from scratch. The top 25 in cumulative earnings over the four qualifying tournaments earn their 2013-2014 PGA Tour cards, with the leading money winner earning full exempt status on the PGA Tour next season. How high the others finish on the qualifying series money list will determine their pecking order for getting into tournaments next season.
The top 25 on the Web.com Tour’s money list through last Sunday’s Cox Classic already are assured of playing on the PGA Tour next season.
Players finishing 76-100 on the Web.com Tour money list will be exempt into the final stage of the Web.com Tour Finals. Anyone finishing 101 or below on the Web.com Tour money list will be exempt into the second stage of qualifying.
For the PGA Tour, golfers who finished 126-150 in the PGA Tour FedEx Cup rankings through the Wyndham Championship (Aug. 25) will be placed into the No. 126-150 category after the 50 players who received their cards on the Web.com Tour or the Web.com Tour Finals. Those players also will be fully exempt on the Web.com Tour for 2014.
Players finishing 151-200 in the FedEx Cup rankings through the Wyndham Championship will not have membership status on the PGA Tour for 2013-14. On the Web.com Tour, they will be part of the PGA Tour’s extended FedEx Cup points list category that is subject to the first reshuffle.
For Arkansans on the PGA Tour, this means former Arkansas Razorback Tag Ridings (142), Farmington’s Scott Gardiner (177) and Little Rock’s Glen Day (191) must finish among the top 25 in the Web.com Tour Finals to retain PGA Tour membership for 2014.
Former Razorback John Daly (235) of Dardanelle did not have exempt status on the PGA Tour this past season and has been out since July because of elbow surgery.
Web.com Tour members Ron Whittaker (104) of Little Rock and former Razorback Brenden Pappas (159) must go through two stages of qualifying school to retain their status on the Web.com Tour.
Sports, Pages 19 on 08/29/2013