A little more than four months ago, Karl Vilips was completing his college career at Stanford.
He had a strong finish, placing T-8 at the NCAA Championship. It helped him earn conditional status on the Korn Ferry Tour for the rest of the 2024 season thanks to his 10th-place finish in the PGA Tour University standings.
Fast forward to Sunday, and Vilips is moving on up again.
He was one of seven PGA Tour U alums to earn PGA Tour cards this year via the Korn Ferry Tour. The top 30 golfers in the KFT standings after the championship on Sunday earned their promotion to the big leagues, and Vilips was one of those who starred in recent months.
Other PGA Tour U alums who earned PGA Tour cards include John Pak, Quade Cummins, Noah Goodwin, William Mouw, Jackson Suber and Ricky Castillo. Vilips is the only one from the Class of 2024 to earn a promotion, and he’ll join Stanford teammate Michael Thorbjornsen on Tour.
Mouw, a Pepperdine product, had three T-2 finishes, two of those coming in the Korn Ferry Tour Finals, and placed 10th in the season-long points race. Cummins earned his Tour card after three years on the KFT and finished in 11th in the standings.
Then there’s Vilips, who ended 19th in the standings after placing in the top 15 in his first four KFT starts. He also won the Utah Championship. Suber finished 37th on the points list last year, but a pair of T-2 finishes helped him move to 20th this time around.
Pak finished No. 1 in the Class of 2021 before an automatic PGA Tour card was awarded. Castillo, who won his KFT debut last summer, finished 26th in the standings. Goodwin was No. 30 in the standings, and he grinded through KFT Q-School last year and then had six top-10 finishes to earn his card.
The last man to secure his @PGATOUR card
@NoahGoodwinGolf finds out he finishes inside the top 30 and is officially #TOURBound. pic.twitter.com/s5AO2dvGsU
— Korn Ferry Tour (@KornFerryTour) October 6, 2024
The 2025 PGA Tour season begins in January.