Web.com Players Lukewarm About Q-School Change

We've heard from the PGA Tour players, and they are positively giddy to send Q-School to the remainder shelves because four cushy fall events were saved. But Garry Smits talks to Web.com players at this week's Winn-Dixie Jacksonville Open and the new qualifying structure isn't generating many positive reviews.

This gets to the fundamental issue I have with the whole mess, that you are eliminating one of the things that made the supposedly free-market PGA Tour the ultimate market-based sport.

“I always loved the idea that a guy could come out of the college, like Webb Simpson and Rickie Fowler, and make it through Q-School,” said Len Mattiace of Jacksonville. “That was great for golf. It’s what made the sport unique. Now, the Tour is saying this is the way it needs to be, the way it has to be and that option is gone, and that I don’t like.”

And as Aron Price points out, the other befuddling thing about this is the potential for discouraging international players at a time the game is going global and the last thing you want to be is an insulated tour.

“I think a lot less guys from Asia and Europe will be coming over here,” he said.

“They had that lure of Q-School to get to the PGA Tour but they’re not going to go to Q-School to get a Web.com Tour card when they can stay home and play on the European Tour or the Asian Tour.”