It was called the PGA Tour Q-School presented by Korn Ferry last week at the Dye’s Valley Course at TPC Sawgrass and Sawgrass Country Club in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., but it was more of a chance to figure out where some of the guys you’ve tried to follow stand at this point in their careers as professional golfers.
For quite a few years, this was just a Korn Ferry Tour qualifying, but in the last couple of years, the PGA Tour has handed out some of its precious cards to the top five finishers and ties, making it at least feel a little more like the PGA Tour Q-School Final Stage of old.
The two names that struck me the most both landed in the group tied for 109th place at 9-over 289, where I found Chris Crawford, one of the very best players in the history of golf at Drexel who starred scholastically at Holy Ghost Prep, and Evan Brown, one of the Ches-Mont League’s top players at Kennett who went on to star at Loyola of Maryland and took a fifth year of eligibility granted by the NCAA because of the onset of the coronavirus in 2020 at Mississippi in the tough Southeastern Conference.
Pretty sure the good news for Crawford and Brown is that just by getting to Sawgrass they both will have status, at least in the early part of the schedule, on the Korn Ferry Tour and on PGA Tour Americas in early 2025.
PGA Tour Latinoamerica and PGA Tour Canada have been combined to form PGA Tour Americas, with the early part of the schedule playing out in Central and South America with the Canadian events being played in our summertime. Makes sense.
The bottom line on either tour is you have to play your best in the early part of the season. There are reshuffles after eight events and 12 events.
When they start talking about reshuffles, my eyes start glazing over. What it means, simply, is that if you’re not playing well, you get reshuffled backward on the list of eligible entrants for each tournament.
I didn’t know it at the time, but the summer of 2015 would be my last covering golf for the Delaware County Daily Times, but I did get a chance to watch Crawford capture the title in the Patterson Cup, one of the Golf Association of Philadelphia’s major championships, at Chester Valley Golf Club.
The next two summers, Crawford was unable to tee it up in BMW Philadelphia Amateur Championship because he was busy playing in the U.S. Open. Two years in a row, Crawford made it through local and sectional qualifying and had starting times at Oakmont Country Club in 2016 and at Erin Hills in 2017.
Crawford qualified for the 2021 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, for a third time, but his first as a professional. You know the kid’s mentally tough because there is no pressure-cooker quite like “Golf’s Longest Day,” the 36-hole sectional qualifiers – the USGA likes to call it final qualifying these days – around the country.
The very best pros, everything from current PGA Tour players to club pros, and amateurs of every possible age and stripe playing 36 holes, sometimes with just four or five spots in the field for the U.S. Open up for grabs. And Crawford has survived that test three times.
And in backtracking through Crawford’s year, I discovered he’s turned 30, so yeah, not a kid anymore by any means.
Crawford finished up with a 1-over 71 in Sunday’s final round at the Dye’s Valley Course. Not sure which courses he played which days in the first three rounds. Looks like par was 70 for both courses. He struggled in the opening round with a 76, but carded a solid 2-under 68 in Friday’s second round.
I was following along here and there, but the scores were mostly pretty high in the second round because the notorious Florida winds made the already difficult courses in Ponte Vedra Beach even tougher. Crawford added a 4-over 74 in Saturday’s third round.
I was following District One and the PIAA Championship pretty closely when Brown was starring at Kennett. He finished in fourth place in Class AAA in the state championship at the Heritage Hills Resort in York County as a junior in 2015.
Brown led Loyola of Maryland to the Patriot League title and a berth in the NCAA’s Kingston Springs Regional as a senior in the spring of 2021. Taking his extra year of eligibility at Ole Miss, Brown was the lineup for the Rebels right to the final day of stroke play in the NCAA Championship at Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Ariz. in the spring of 2022.
I had lost track of Brown until I came upon his name at last week’s Q-School finale. He had a pair of 2-over 72s in the first two rounds, added a 4-over 74 in Saturday’s third round and matched Crawford’s final round of 1-over 71 at the Dye’s Valley Course to join Crawford at 9-over.
For Crawford and Brown, the real heavy lifting came in the Second Stage of qualifying as each advanced to last week’s Final Stage with strong showings. Pretty sure, if they had been unable to advance out of the Second Stage, their opportunities to play on either the Korn Ferry or the PGA Americas tours would have been very limited.
Crawford finished in a tie for third place in the Second Stage in November at the Deer Creek Golf Course at The Landings Golf & Athletic Club in Savannah, Ga. with a 19-under 269 total. You have to go really low to get out of Second Stage.
Brown finished in a tie for fifth place in the Second Stage at the Robert Trent Jones Trail at Highland Oaks Highlands/Marshwood Course in Dothan, Ala. earlier this month with an 11-under 277 total.
Couple more familiar names in the Second Stage at The Landings in Savannah as Rolling Green Golf Club’s head of instruction Braden Shattuck, the Philadelphia Section PGA’s Rolex/Haverford Trust Player of the Year for the third year in a row in 2024, and Patrick Sheehan, who wrapped up his career at Penn State last spring and captured the Pennsylvania Amateur crown at Huntingdon Valley Country Club in the summer, both failed to advance to the Final Stage.
Shattuck probably got into the Second Stage off his strong showing in the PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Ky., where he was the low club pro. Shattuck finished in a tie for 33rd place at The Landings with an 8-under 280 total. It took 12-under to get through.
Sheehan finished in 68th place with a 2-over 290 total. Sheehan advanced to the Second Stage by finishing in a tie for fourth place in the First Stage in October with a 16-under 272 total at Champions Pointe Golf Club in Henryville, Ind.
Also advancing out of the First Stage at Champions Pointe was Sheehan’s old rival, dating back to their high school days, Palmer Jackson, who wrapped up an outstanding five-year career at Notre Dame in the spring. Jackson finished in a tie for 11th place at Champions Pointe with a 13-under 275 total.
Pretty sure it was the amateur swan song for both Sheehan and Jackson at the U.S. Amateur at Hazeltine National Golf Club in Chaska, Minn. in August.
And wouldn’t the golf gods pit them in an opening-round match with Sheehan claiming a 2 and 1 victory, avenging his loss to Jackson in the final of the Pennsylvania Golf Association’s R. Jay Sigel Match Play Championship in the summer of 2021 at Sewickley Heights Golf Club.
Jackson, the PIAA Class AAA champion as a senior at Franklin Regional in 2018, went to the Second Stage at the Highland Oaks Highlands/Marshwood Course, but failed to advance to the Final Stage with a 4-over 292 total.
Lanto Griffin, a pretty solid PGA Tour pro who had been hampered by a back injury he first suffered in 2022, made sure he would be back in the big leagues of professional golf as he recorded a sizzling 7-under 63 in Sunday’s final round at the Dye’s Valley Course to finish at the top of the heap in the Q-School finale by three shots with a 9-under 271 total.
Hayden Buckley, another PGA Tour veteran with two tour wins on his resume, was the runnerup as he carded back-to-back 3-under 67s in the final two rounds and ended up with a 6-under 274 total.
Takumi Kanaya of Japan was another shot behind Buckley in third place with a 5-under 275 total after closing with a 1-under 69.
Again, this guy is no novice. He has won seven times on the Japan Tour and played in 11 major championships. As an amateur, Kanaya spent some time at the top of the World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR).
The last three PGA Tour cards went to a trio of college standouts of recent vintage from the talent-rich Southeastern Conference who finished in a tie for fourth place at 4-under 276.
That group included Alejandro Tosti, the Argentinian who captured the SEC’s individual crown as a junior at Florida in 2017, Will Chandler, who starred at Georgia, and Matthew Riedel, who completed an outstanding career at Vanderbilt in the spring.
Tosti, trying to get back on the PGA Tour after struggling as a rookie in 2024, recorded a sparkling 4-under 66 in the final round at the Dye’s Valley Course to earn his way back to pro golf’s big league.
Chandler, limited to just 10 starts on the Korn Ferry Tour in 2024, had a great week at Sawgrass when it mattered the most as he, too, closed with a 66 at the Dye’s Valley Course.
Riedel had the lead going into the final round, but struggled a little with a 2-over 72 at the Dye’s Valley Course. Still, he had enough of a cushion to graduate to the PGA Tour.
Riedel earned his spot in Final Qualifying by finishing in fourth place in the relatively new PGA Tour University Rankings.
The Vanderbilt group of the last three seasons might be the most talented college golf team to not win a national championship. The Commodores earned a spot in the match-play bracket at the NCAA Championship at the La Costa Resort & Spa’s North Course in Carlsbad, Calif. last spring, but fell to Ohio State in the quarterfinals.
Riedel’s Vanderbilt teammate, Cole Sherwood, came on strong with a 66 in the third round before closing with a 2-under 68 at Sawgrass Country Club to finish in the group tied for 43rd place with a 3-over 283 total.
Sherwood will be playing on the Korn Ferry Tour in 2025, but he’ll join his college teammate Riedel on the PGA Tour eventually.
Three players who were among the six guys who finished in a tie for eighth place at 2-under 278 caught my eye.
I covered the 2011 AT&T Championship for the Daily Times during its two-year stop at Aronimink Golf Club, the Donald Ross masterpiece that will host the PGA Championship in the spring of 2026. The then 30-year-old Nick Watney outlasted K.J. Choi in what, in my memory, was a great stretch duel to claim his second win of the year.
And there he was last weekend, hard at work trying to get back on the PGA Tour. Watney’s talent was on display in a sizzling final round of 5-under 65 at the Dye’s Valley Course. He’ll be on the Korn Ferry Tour to start 2025, but he’s on the brink of a return to the PGA Tour.
I always remember Adrien Dumont de Chassart capturing co-medalist honors in the Big Ten Championship in 2019 as a freshman at Illinois at Philadelphia Cricket Club’s Wissahickon Course, an A.W. Tillinghast gem.
The Wissahickon Course was buffeted by sustained winds of 25 mph with gusts up to 40 mph, basically a wind storm, in the second round, but Dumont de Chassart survived the tough conditions and led the Fightin’ Illini to the Big Ten team crown.
Dumont de Chassart of Belgium finished up with back-to-back 3-under 67s in the final two rounds to climb up the leaderboard at Sawgrass.
I always try to check in on the progress of the Philadelphia Section PGA pros when they tee it up in the National Car Rental Assistant PGA Professional Championship each fall. Three years ago, Brian Bergstol, the head of instruction at the Shawnee Inn & Golf Resort was the runnerup, but he finished seven shots behind the winner, Jin Chung, an instructor at the Chateau Elan Golf Club in Braselton, Ga.
Chung, who played in this year’s NCR Assistant PGA Professional Championship last month at the PGA Golf Club’s Wanamaker Course in Port St. Lucie, Fla., finished in the group tied for eighth place at 2-under, closing with a 3-under 67 at the Dye’s Valley Course.
At age 36, Chung will get a big opportunity to prove himself on the Korn Ferry Tour.
Finally, in a tie for 124th place at 11-over 291 was Sean O’Hair, whose career I started following while working at the Daily Times when we realized he was married to the former Jackie Lucas, a pretty good player in her own right in high school at Sun Valley.
O’Hair owns four PGA Tour wins and has won more than $25 million during his career. O’Hair had 14 starts on the PGA Tour in 2024, making six cuts.
O’Hair, who lives in the Philadelphia area in Chester County, closed with a 2-over 72 at Sawgrass Country Club in the final round of the Final Stage. At age 42, he’ll start his road back to the PGA Tour on the Korn Ferry Tour in 2025.
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