After six gruelling days of action at Infinitum Golf Club in Spain, the final stage of DP World Tour Q-school has drawn to a close.
After what is regarded as the toughest week in golf, some competitors experienced jubilation as the top 25 players and ties on the final leaderboard earned DP World Tour cards for the 2024 season. However, for others, there was agony at seeing their efforts fall short.
German Freddy Schott played 32 times on the DP World Tour in 2023, with a best finish of T10 at July’s Made In Himmerland, but he lost his card after finishing 28 places beneath the cut-off in the Race to Dubai rankings. He didn’t take long to rectify that, though, and closed out his final round in style with an eagle to emerge top of the final leaderboard to make a quick return, along with 32 others.
Perhaps the biggest name to claim a card is Thai star Kiradech Aphibarnrat, who has four DP World Tour titles. The 34-year-old is a hugely experienced DP World Tour performer, with 202 starts to his name and career earnings of almost €10m. He secured his return with a final round of 64, which included seven birdies to finish 15th.
Two places ahead of Aphibarnrat on the leaderboard was Renato Paratore. Last year, the Italian endured double agony after firstly finishing one place below the cut-off in the Race to Dubai rankings to lose his card, then miss out on regaining it at Q-school by one shot. However, six rounds that included just nine bogeys ensured that there was no repeat of those frustrations for the 2020 Betfred British Masters champion.
Other players celebrating will be Swede Kristoffer Broberg, who edged out Patrick Reed to claim the 2015 BMW Masters title and followed that up with a win in the 2021 Dutch Open. His 14-under for the 16 rounds saw him in a group of 12 who earned a card by one shot.
One of the players who made easier work of the task was Tom Lewis, who finished T6 to comfortably claim a card. The Englishman is a two-time winner of the Portugal Masters, and also won the 2019 Korn Ferry Tour Championship. One of the highlights of his career to date, though, was undoubtedly tying the lead after the first round of the 2011 Open as an amateur, before finishing T30 at Royal St George's Golf Club.
Afterwards, Lewis reflected on the achievement, saying: "This means a lot to me. I've had some up and down moments in my career, and hopefully this can start a new path for me and I can keep building from here."
Another Englishman claiming a DP World Tour card is 18-year-old amateur Joshua Berry, thanks to his finish of T22.
During the closing stages, drama was always likely to ensue, too, and it duly arrived courtesy of Dane Soren Broholt Lind, who holed an eagle putt on the last hole to earn a card by one shot.
Søren Broholt Lind EAGLES the last to climb into the top 25 😮#DPWTQSchool pic.twitter.com/vsH9tSyCJUNovember 15, 2023
Elsewhere, there was agony, with American John Catlin, who has three DP World Tour wins and four on the Asian Tour, missing out by two shots, thanks largely to bogeys in two of the last three holes.
Scot Marc Warren fared even worse. The four-time DP World Tour winner finished 11 shots behind the score he needed for a card, while it was a similar story for South African Thomas Aiken, whose three DP World Tour wins must seem like a distant memory after he missed out on a card by eight shots.
Spare a thought for Alex Levy, too. The five-time DP World Tour-winning Frenchman lost his Tour card in dramatic fashion at the Qatar Masters. At the tournament, he fell short by one shot after a series of near misses including two lip outs on his final two holes.
After the tournament he reflected on his bad luck and confirmed he would go to Q-school. He said: “I think I’m going to go, yeah, for sure and try to get the best card I can. And just to give everything I had and we’ll see what happens.”
Alas, for Levy, it wasn’t to be. A first round of three-over didn’t help his cause and, though things improved, he eventually finished eight under for the six rounds, six shots behind where he needed to be to regain his DP World Tour card.
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The 33 Players Who Earned A DP World Tour Card At Q-School
- Freddy Schott
- Filippo Celli
- Sebastian Friedrichsen
- Darius Van Driel
- Matthis Besard
- Sam Jones
- Tom Lewis
- Sebastian Garcia
- Haydn Barron
- Kristian Krogh Johannessen
- Jack Davidson
- Jacques Kruyswijk
- Renato Paratore
- Andrew Wilson
- Kiradech Aphibarnrat
- David Ravetto
- Pieter Moolman
- Garrick Porteous
- Nicolo Gelletti
- Joshua Berry (AM)
- Benjamin Rusch
- Jonathan Goth-Rasmussen
- Kristoffer Broberg
- Rhys Enoch
- Darren Fichardt
- Jannik De Bruyn
- Pedro Figueiredo
- Soren Broholt Lind
- Nicolai Von Dellingshausen
- Lauri Ruuska
- Alfredo Garcia Heredia
- Joe Dean
- James Nicholas
