Post Q-School World: "It certainly is weighing a lot on every top college players' mind."
/I finally had a chance to read the specifics of the finalized PGA Tour-kills-Q-School concept and of course it's as goofy as you'd expect for a fully comprised, non-sensical attempt to suggest PGA Tour players just missing their card should play for three weeks with Nationwide Tour also-rans and somehow feel good about life. But the PGA Tour is all about the money, and I get that this helped them wring a few more pennies out of a sponsor.
More interesting in Steve Elling's piece and continuing to be overlooked is the way in which the new system will likely entice players to leave college early. The tour believes a year on the Nationwide Tour is better than three weeks of tour school in molding, maturing and shaping players, yet I would make the case that four years of university (oops, only been in the UK one day and I'm already speaking the language) is better than none.
Top college players face a much tougher road to instant membership. In fact, player agents predict that top collegians will leave school earlier, in order to accept the seven permitted sponsor exemptions as a means of hopefully avoiding the Web.com tour altogether. University of Alabama product Bud Cauley earned enough money in his seven sponsor exemptions last year to claim a ‘12 card and skip Q-school. But with the wraparound season starting next year, there won't be nearly as many summer events for collegians to chase that brass ring. Players might bail at the semester break, or blow off college altogether. Far-fetched? Said one top player agent Tuesday: “No, that's an absolute fact.”
Stanford sophomore Patrick Rodgers, playing this week at the John Deere Classic on a sponsor exemption, has his antenna up for sure.
"It certainly is weighing a lot on every top college players' mind," he said Tuesday. "I mean, it's a big change for the tour."