PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Ever since his grandfather Arnold Palmer died in 2016, Sam Saunders hasn’t found a replacement to be his swing coach. But anytime his game does go a bit haywire, his first call is to his pal Eric Cole, who had a breakthrough season on the PGA Tour in 2022-23 and has climbed to No. 41 in the Official World Golf Ranking.
“He still likes me to reach out to him and I do,” Saunders said. “He gets me back on track.”
Saunders had Cole as a caddie on the PGA Tour when he played in the big leagues previously and Cole was still battling to find his game on the mini-tours. It’s a role that Cole likely would have reprised this week as Saunders attempts to earn a promotion to the promised land via PGA Tour Qualifying School.
“If he wasn’t on his honeymoon he would’ve done it,” Saunders said. “I was like, ‘Dude, you can’t get divorced two days after you get married.’ He told me at his wedding, ‘Go get one of the five cards this week. My life will be so much better if you are out there with me. Just get it done.’ And, yeah, it would be a dream come true for the two of us to play on the PGA Tour together.”
After a decade of solely awarding varying levels of Korn Ferry Tour membership, final stage of PGA Tour Q-School marks the first time since 2012 that there are PGA Tour cards on the line. Upon conclusion of the 72-hole tournament, which begins on Thursday and will see the field play two 18-hole rounds – at both Dye’s Valley Course at TPC Sawgrass and Sawgrass Country Club – the top five finishers and ties will earn PGA Tour membership for 2024. Once again, the opportunity exists for a player in the field of 165 to go from obscurity to passing “Go” and collecting way more than $200 on the PGA Tour.
“Everyone and his brother are here to give it a try,” said veteran pro Rob Oppenheim, who first played in Q-School in 2001.
“Even if there was one card you’d come because it’s such a cool opportunity,” said Saunders.
Heartache and jubilation will both make an appearance on Sunday. Paul Azinger, the 1984 medalist, once described Q-School as “climbing up a cactus backwards, naked.” Erik Compton, who is in the field this week, said, “It was no place for women or children,” and retired pro Joe Ogilvie may have said it best when he mused, “Shakespeare would have written one hell of a tragedy here.”
It’s a competitive field with 19 Tour winners, veterans trying to improve or regain status and newbies who need directions to the locker room and are excited to have some status for next season and trying to better it.
The next 40 finishers and ties are exempt for multiple reshuffles of the 2024 Korn Ferry Tour season, guaranteeing them between eight to 12 starts depending on their finish. The next 20 finishers and ties earn exempt status for the Latin America Swing of the 2024 PGA Tour Americas season in addition to conditional Korn Ferry Tour status. All remaining finishers outside the aforementioned categories earn conditional Korn Ferry Tour and PGA Tour Americas membership for 2024.
For Saunders, he already has secured full status on the Korn Ferry Tour for next season so he has nothing to lose.
“I’m playing with house money,” he said. “Finishing sixth place does nothing for me in terms of positioning. I can fire at pins, I can play more aggressively than some other guys.”
It’s been a long time since Patton Kizzire has needed to play Q-School. After the stark reality hit him at the RSM Classic last month that he had failed to finish in the top 125, he shed tears at the realization that he would no longer be fully exempt. At No. 129, he’ll still have conditional status playing out of the Nos. 126-150 category, but the chance to secure full status is too compelling to pass up.
“All it is is an opportunity for me to move up,” he said.
The purse this week is a modest $510,000, with $50,000 going to the medalist, but Saunders said a paycheck is the farthest thing from anyone’s mind.
“That’s what makes it so pure. You’re playing for your entire career or an entire year,” he said.
“It’s kind of like the Olympics. People work their tails off for four years and then they have their one event and if you screw up it’s like, oh my gosh, I’ve got to wait four more years. Obviously the wait in golf isn’t that long, but if you screw up at Q-School and leave with limited status you feel like, oh my gosh, I’ve got to wait a whole ‘nother year – if I can make it back to this point – so it’s incredibly difficult.”
The weather could be dicey: cold, wind and rain are in the forecast. If such conditions prevail, there will be no faking it.
“It’s about embracing the suck sometimes,” said Ryan Gerard, “because it’s going to suck for a few days out here.”