Q School certain to test nerves
It is a golf tournament without fanfare. It is 108 total holes, without luxury boxes and grandstands. It is fairways and greens, without applause.
It is golf's version of hell week, and it does not elicit the kind of atmosphere that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
"It's weird, just weird," said 20-year PGA Tour veteran Mike Hulbert, describing the PGA Tour's Qualifying Tournament, better known as Q School. "Just a weird feeling, hard to describe."
A field of 168 PGA Tour hopefuls will try to conquer those sensations and earn playing privileges for 2005 at the annual PGA Tour Qualifying Tournament. The six-day marathon beings Wednesday at PGA West in LaQuinta, Calif.
Come next Monday, there will be some drained, yet delighted PGA pros.
"You have to pinch yourself," said Hulbert, 46, who first went through Q School in 1985, then had to return after a poor season in 1999. "That's the hardest part. The guy announces your name. He's right next to you. There's nobody there. There's no ropes. There's no marshals. There's no scores. But that's the way it is. It's just weird. It's just different. We're so used to being catered to. Now it's just you going about your business."
Hulbert, who now does television commentary, won't be part of the field in California, but there will be some familiar names, including past PGA Tour winners Scott Simpson, Matt Kuchar, Ken Green and Dan Forsman.
Players of every shape and form compete at Q School. Young pros just out of college. Nationwide Tour players looking to take the next step. PGA Tour players who failed to keep their exemption this year. And it isn't cheap. A player who must go through all three stages of qualifying pays $4,000 to enter.
There is an all-or-nothing feel to Q School, which means a lot is riding on each shot. You can cut the tension with a 1-iron.
"If you're at Q School, things probably aren't going well for you," said Green, a former U.S. Ryder Cup team player. "You blow Q School, and you have to wait another year to try it again. This is intense."
PGA Tour players must finish among the top-125 money winners (if they have not won in the past two years) to remain fully exempt for the next season. Nationwide Tour players can earn a full exemption to the PGA Tour by finishing among the top 20 money winners. Those who didn't make it can try to get in through Q School.
Players who finish in the top 30 and ties will earn their playing card for 2005. Those who finish 31st through 75th place will have exempt status on the Nationwide Tour, while the rest will have conditional status.
But this is not even the beginning. Q School has grown so much that regional stages are required to whittle the field. Some 1,200 players typically start the Q School process. Those with no status at all must advance through two 72-hole events just to make it to the final stage. Last year, only six players managed to make it through all three stages to the PGA Tour.
"The hardest thing for a lot of these kids is getting to the tour," said golf legend Jack Nicklaus, the winner of 18 major championships and 73 PGA Tour titles, who has watched his son, Gary, endure the process.
"Once you get there, it's probably easier to play the tournaments than it is the qualifying school. The guys who are on the tour are better players, but it's because they are more seasoned players. But you have to get out there to get seasoned. So once these kids get out there some of them have a chance to be the stars for the next 10 years."
It is a far different process from the one Nicklaus endured more than 40 years ago when he turned professional. Back then, tournament fields were not always full. There was no qualifying tournament.
"You had to show that you had a sponsor or that you had $12,000 to support you so that you could play on the tour," Nicklaus said. "You had to be verified that you were capable of playing. Since I had won the National Amateur, I didn't need that. Then you could go play. That's all you had to do."
Nicklaus' first tournament as a pro was the 1962 Los Angeles Open. At that time, if you made a cut, you could play the next week. "I never qualified for a tournament," he said. "I got an exemption for the first tournament I played in. I made the cut in my first six tournaments. I played every week until the U.S. Open. I won the U.S. Open and I was exempt for life."
The PGA Tour did not start a qualifying tournament until 1965. There were just 49 applicants and 17 cards were granted. By 1968, the tour was having two qualifiers a year, in the fall and spring, a practice that continued until 1981. That's why you hear stories about players such as Mac O'Grady, who needed 17 trips through Q School to get on the PGA Tour; he used to try twice a year.
By 1983, the tour had gone to its all-exempt, top-125 system. Previously, only the top 60 players were exempt each year, and the rest had to qualify for tournaments on Mondays even if they had made it through Q School.
You could make the argument that it was tougher then. A playing card only gave you the right to qualify on Mondays. And there was no fall-back plan, like there is today with the Nationwide Tour. That is why some believe the second stage of Q School is the real pressure cooker. Fail there, and you are relegated to the mini tours or Monday qualifying.
There are a bunch of familiar names are in the field, guys like Jay Don Blake, Guy Boros, Olin Browne, Russ Cochran, Glen Day, Scott Gump, Carl Paulson, Dicky Pride and Paul Stankowski. All of them have cashed some pretty hefty PGA Tour checks.
That doesn't make it any easier to cope. Six days, 108 holes. Each player will hit some 400 shots, and exempt status could hinge on one bad swing, one bad bounce, one poorly placed tree, one inconvenient spike mark.
Last year, 17 golfers missed out on PGA Tour cards by three strokes or less. That's one stroke every 36 holes. And this year's total could be even higher.
Welcome to hell week.
Bob Harig covers golf for the St. Petersburg Times and is a frequent contributor to ESPN.com. He can be reached at harig@sptimes.com.
