There really is nothing quite like the PGA Qualifying Tournament (commonly know as "the Q School") for sheer sporting drama.
After six nerve-wracking rounds (108 holes), the 25 low scorers get the treasured fully-exempt status to play in PGA Tour events for the 2009 season.
Don’t finish in the low 25? It’s back to slogging around the mini-Tours.
The pressure is excruciating. Take, for example, PGA Tour veteran Joel Edwards’ reaction after blowing the 2004 Q school. He was on the cut line until hitting his tee shot into the water on the 108th hole and taking double-bogey. Edwards went directly from the green to the parking lot, letting out guttural screams and pounding his bag along the way, paying his caddie and slamming his car door as he drove off.
John Strege sums up the drama well:
The emotional gamut ran its course all within a matter of moments on the 18th hole of the Nicklaus Tournament Course on Monday afternoon, the PGA Tour Qualifying Tournament delivering on its promise of compelling theater to the extremes.
Brian Vranesh, 31, was waiting tables a year ago. When he holed out to finish a round of seven under par 65, he had completed an improbable journey from working for tips to playing for millions, setting free a torrent of tears that qualifies as a gully washer in this bone-dry California desert.
Moments later, in the group directly behind Vranesh, a dispirited Josh Teater, 29, a veteran of mini tours who was on the verge of a promotion to the big leagues, completed a free fall finish — triple-bogey, double-bogey, par, double-bogey — that left the pieces of his shattered dream strewn across PGA West here.
It was, simultaneously blissfully and lamentably, a typical Q school finish. [. . .]
So while Vranesh is preparing to move onto the PGA Tour, Teater will attempt to regroup from the worst stretch of golf in his life, all things considered, and join the Nationwide Tour.
Teater was six under par on his round and 19 under par for the tournament [and in the top 25] when he came to the par-5 15th hole [his 105th of the tournament] on [his final round]. He hit his second there into the water, took a drop and hit his fourth into the water. After another drop, he hit his sixth onto the green and two-putted for eight.
He double-bogeyed two of the next three and fell to a tie for 62nd and on the wrong end of the extremes that make Q School what it so maddeningly is.
Jason Sobel provides short bios on each of 25 qualifiers. Former University of Texas golfer and PGA Tour veteran Harrison Frazar won the tournament by an impressive eight strokes (including one round of 59!). I wonder if he will get this sponsor back?
Finally, The Woodlands’ Stacy Lewis won the LPGA Q School this past weekend and is fully-exempt on the LPGA Tour for the 2009 season. Keep an eye on her.