As expected, the PGA Tour will eliminate Q School in favor of a three tournament playoff featuring Nationwide and PGA Tour players. Here’s how it would work:
Following the end of the Fedex Cup regular season, the top 75 players on the Nationwide Tour money list and players 126 – 200 on the PGA Tour Money list will play a three tournament schedule where the top 50 will get their PGA Tour cards.
The change will take place after the FedEx Cup season ends in August 2013. That’s also when the PGA Tour will change its starting date from January to Octoberl.
I like the idea. The FedEx Cup Series / Tour Championship is the natural ending place for a Tour season—it is the Tour’s playoffs and World Series. With such a climax, the Fall Series had been rendered irrelevant.
It’s a Play-In, rather than a Play-Off.
Under the new plan, the Fall Series will be the beginning of the new season, helping to determine which new players will play for the following year’s FedEx Cup.
The biggest effect of this is that the Nationwide will be the primary point of entry for the PGA Tour. Thus, we won’t see any recently-graduated college stars play immediately on the Tour. Those players will make the three tournament play-in only if they have earned money equivalent to being within the top 200 on the PGA Tour money list, or the top 75 Nationwide Tour money list. I’m not clear how players will then get into the Nationwide Tour.
Still to be determined is if the October – January events will be worth as many Fedex Cup points as January through August events. If not, the Tour could have trouble holding on to sponsors. Who wants to pay full cash for a half event.
One last major change: The HSBC Champions in China will be considered a full-fledged World Golf Championship starting in 2013.
My only real beef with this is that the PGA Tour has turned itself into a year-round sports league. I think they would have better been served ending the season with the Tour Championship, having the three event play-in, and then taking a couple of months off, restarting in January. That, however, would result in less money.
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