In 2023, the PGA Tour's Q-School is changing in a big way. For the first time in a decade, Q-School will offer PGA Tour cards, and that's a huge deal.
In recent memory, PGA Tour Q-School didn't exist. Technically, it still won't. Rather, the PGA Tour cards will be made available to the top five finishers in the Korn Ferry Tour Q-School finals. Since 2013, the tournament has only offered status on the Korn Ferry Tour, which is the PGA Tour's developmental circuit and the most common path now to a PGA Tour card -- over the course of a full season. Even still, finishing well in Korn Ferry Tour Q-School only guaranteed starts through as much as half of the season.
Now, with five PGA Tour cards on the line, there's a lot more motivation to do well in the stressful grind of Q-School.
Scottie Scheffler, who will probably never again see the Korn Ferry Tour, explains what having PGA Tour cards on the line would have meant to him when he went through Korn Ferry Tour Q-School.
"It definitely would have encouraged me to move further up the leaderboard. I definitely got a little conservative in the last round and I kind of had to skate by there at the last second," he said at The American Express. "So it may have helped me at the time to get to the Korn Ferry, I don't know if it would have helped me get to the PGA Tour."
Still, Scheffler sees the change as a good thing.
"I think it's a good opportunity for guys. I think it's something that you deserve. I mean, it's pretty grueling to go through Q-School, especially if you start at first stage like I did. It's a long few months," he explained.
He added, "I think more opportunities for guys to get out here is better. Because you want to reward good golf wherever it is. If it's at Q-School or on the Korn Ferry or PGA TOUR Canada, Latin America, wherever it is, you want to reward good golf."
