The chase for the cards has come down to four days on the First Coast.
The PGA Tour Q-School, presented by Korn Ferry, will be Dec. 12-15 with the field competing in two rounds at the TPC Sawgrass Dye’s Valley and two at the Sawgrass Country Club.
Among the veterans who have had to return to the qualifying process are multiple Tour winners Nick Watney, Sean O’Hair and Martin Laird, other Tour winners such as Lanto Griffin of Ponte Vedra Beach, Austin Cook, Tyler Duncan, Tommy Gainey and Garrick Higgo; and rising stars Christo Lamprecht, Pierceson Coody and Sam Bennett.
The tournament rounds at Dye’s Valley are open to the public. The free tickets must be downloaded by visiting the Q-School ticketmaster page at am.ticketmaster.com/pgnt/buy/buy2024.
Local players will take their best shots
The Jacksonville area will be heavily represented in the Q-School field:
- Travis Trace, a Sandalwood High and University of North Florida graduate, made a 15-foot birdie putt on the final hole of a second-stage qualifier at Kinderlou Forest in Valdosta, Ga., to clinch the final spot from that event. He was making his fifth attempt in a second-stage qualifier to reach the Q-School finals.
- Nick Gabrelcik, the first three-time ASUN Player of the Year at UNF, earned a Korn Ferry Tour card through the 2024 PGA Tour University college rankings. He made six of 13 cuts and finished 118th on the final points list.
- Raul Pereda, a Jacksonville University graduate, earned his PGA Tour card at the 2023 Q-School. However, he made only four of 25 cuts and had to return to second-stage qualifying. He tied for fourth at the Valencia, Calif., qualifier.
- Marcus Plunkett played high school golf at Nease and Ponte Vedra and then earned an appointment to Army West Point, where he was the Patriot League Player of the Year in 2014. He finished solo fourth in the Dothan, Ala., qualifier.
- Two area residents who played golf in the Big Ten, Sam Anderson and Luke Guthrie, were the medalists in their second-stage qualifiers. Anderson, who played at Wisconsin, won the Valdosta, Ga., qualifier by six shots and Guthrie, who played at Illinois, won by two at the Hammock Beach qualifier.
- Other area residents in the Q-School field are Tyson Alexander, Derek Bard, Cody Blick, Adrien Dumont de Chassart, Doc Redman, Thomas Walsh, Tom Wilkinson and Carl Yuan.
PGA Tour Q-School presented by Korn Ferry field
Players who qualified directly to Q-School
Tyson Alexander, Matthew Anderson, Matt Atkins.
Paul Barjon, Erik Barnes, Wilson Bateman, Zach Bauchou, Sam Bennett, Barend Botha, Joseph Bramlett. Ryan Brehm, Hayden Buckley, Bronson Burgoon, Ryan Burnett.
Will Cannon, Davis Chatfield, Pierceson Coody, Austin Cook, Patrick Cover, Myles Creighton, Brandon Crick, Trace Crowe.
MJ Daffue, Roberto Díaz, Alistair Docherty, Kevin Dougherty, Adrien Dumont de Chassart, Tyler Duncan.
Clay Feagler, Wilson Furr.
Nick Gabrelcik, Tommy Gainey, Emilio Gonzalez, Tano Goya, Austin Greaser, Lanto Griffin.
Garrick Higgo, Harry Hillier, Kensei Hirata, Austin Hitt, Ian Holt.
Yubin Jang, Carter Jenkins.
John Keefer, S.H. Kim, Frederik Kjettrup.
Martin Laird, Christo Lamprecht, Nelson Ledesma.
Ryan McCormick, Matthew NeSmith, Seung-Yul Noh, Pontus Nyholm.
Sean O’Hair, Alvaro Ortiz.
Trent Phillips, Scott Piercy.
Chez Reavie, Doc Redman, Seth Reeves, Matthew Riedel.
Sandy Scott, Robby Shelton, Roger Sloan, Austin Smotherman, Hayden Springer, Ross Steelman, Justin Suh.
Callum Tarren, Ben Taylor, Alejandro Tosti, Shad Tuten.
Thomas Walsh, Dalton Ward, Nick Watney, Joe Weiler, Richy Werenski, Kyle Westmoreland, Tom Whitney, Tim Wilkinson, Brandon Wu.
Norman Xiong.
Carl Yuan.
Second-stage qualifiers
Savannah, Ga.
Marcelo Rozo, Zack Fischer, Cooper Musselman, Christopher Crawford, Tain Lee, Rhein Gibson, Zach James, Jake Scott, Spencer Ralston, Ryan Blaum, Charles Huntzinger, Rayhan Thomas, Ben Carr, Cameron Huss, Bryson Nimmer, Derek Bard, Grant Hirschman, Luis Garza Leon, Brandon Berry, Jake Hall (a).
Dothan, Ala.
Ashton Van Horne, Owen Stamper, John Augenstein, Marcus Plunkett, Chase Sienkiewicz, Evan Brown, John Houk, Jacob Bergeron, Blake McShea, Connor Howe, Jack Maguire, Callum McNeill, David Longmire, Billy Tom Sargent, Will Chandler, Jin Chung, Ryan Davis, David Perkins, Sam Choi, Gavin Cohen.
Hammock Beach
Luke Guthrie, Mateo Fernandez de Oliveir, Brandon Hoelzer, Andi Xu, Runchanapong Youprayong, Zecheng Dou, Dan McCarthy, Hank Lebioda, Cody Blick, Brendon Jelley, Drew Doyle, Dawson Jones, Lance Yates, Charles Reiter, Caleb VanArragon, Davis Shore, Jeremy Gandon, John Houchin.
Valdosta, Ga.
Samuel Anderson, Aman Gupta, Blaine Hale, Chris Korte, James Nicholas, Sudarshan Yellamaraju, Dawson Armstrong, Bryce Lewis, Ryan Hall, Kyle Cottam, Brett White, Cole Sherwood, Steffen Smith, Derek Hitchner, Sebastian Szirmak, Luke Gifford, Travis Trace.
Valencia (Calif)
Petr Hruby, Takumi Kanaya, Raul Pereda, David Gazzolo, Corey Shaun, Riley Lewis, Nate Stember, Jonas Baumgartner, Sangmoon Bae, Thomas Longbella, Tanner Napier, Dylan Menante, Nicolo Galletti, Jeffrey Kang, SeungTaek Lee, Johnnie Greco.