PGA TOUR RELEASED DETAILS OF NEW QUALIFYING STRUCTURE

By mustang6560 on 7/11/12

The details of the new PGA Tour qualifying structure were released yesterday.

The big difference between the current structure and the new structure is that the Web.com Tour Finals will replace Q-School, which we already knew. But, what we didn't know, was whether or not players would be seeded prior to the start of the finals based on their season long performance on the PGA Tour or Web.com Tour. And the answer is no.

Starting in 2013, the top 25 money winners on the Web.com Tour in the regular season will earn their PGA Tour cards, which follows the current structure. However, instead of the other 25 PGA Tour cards being handed out to the top performers at Q-School, the top 75 money winners on the Web.com Tour, numbers 126-200 in the FedExCup standings and non-members who have earned enough FedExCup points from their performance on the PGA Tour to place them 126-200 on the official FedExCup points list will be invited to compete in the Web.com Tour Finals for a chance to earn their tour cards for the next season.

Once the field is set for the Web.com Tour Finals, the money lists will be thrown out and everyone will start with a clean slate. There will be no difference between the player who finished 39th on the Web.com Tour money list or the player who finished 139th in the FedExCup standing. And this doesn't sit well with Sean Martin.

And so the PGA Tour spent so much time trying to find a way to fairly penalize those who entered the Web.com Tour Finals at the rear of the two lists that determined finals entry: the FedEx Cup points list and the Web.com Tour money list.

With no pre-finals seeding, the new system is nothing more than a drawn-out version of Q-School, lasting several weeks instead of six days. Like Q-School, all players hoping to earn Tour cards at the finals will start at zero. But unlike Q-School, entry to the finals is limited to players who competed on the Web.com and PGA tours in the previous year.

I tend to agree with Sean. I would have liked to see some sort of pre-seeding involved in the Web.com Tour Finals. The PGA Tour weights the FedExCup, which provides an advantage to the players who finished near the top of the standings, so why couldn't they come up with some sort of weighting system for the Web.com Tour Finals?

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Image via Flickr, Keith Allison


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