I saw my tee time was posted at 9:10 the following day on the trailer and I proceeded to double check my tee time status that night online. The next day as I arrived at the first tee to begin my round, I was informed that I missed my tee time. There was another competitor in the field named John Kyle. For whatever reason, my brain registered that as me and I was 100% sure I was playing at 9:10. Nope, I was slated to play at 8am, and I missed my tee time and was disqualified. The first tournament in my life I've ever been disqualified from, and furthermore, it was without hitting a single shot. Not the way I wanted to end my year on by a fluke miscalculation and oversight. Such is life though, thus I had to accept my fate and move on.
People come up to me all the time and ask me what the process involves to get to the PGA Tour. It can be slightly annoying, but I realize for the average golf fan, it is unknown. I've drawn a diagram above to simplify what it takes. There are currently 3 tiers to the PGA Tour system. Each of the bottom two levels offers the opportunity to move up the ladder with consistent play throughout the year. The way to do that is to finish inside a certain mark on each respective tour's year end money list. For me, I currently reside outside the system's inner circle. I can't play in these events without either A) advancing through the Q School of one of these specified tours or B) Monday qualifying into an individual event that is offered up each week. My goal for 2014 is to get into the pipeline and let my immense talent shine forth by successfully navigating myself through PGA Tour sanctioned Q Schools. I went down to Lima, Peru in early January for the PGA Tour Latino America Q School. It was a 4 day qualifier with 132 players. The top 20 players obtained full playing privileges and players 21-40 obtained conditional status. I struck the ball beautifully all week, but my putter let me down. I ended up missing the qualifying mark by 2 painful strokes.
As a friend of mine tells me all the time, I have to be relentless. As soon as I got home, I contacted the executives for the PGA Tour Latino America and got a list of all the tournament directors for this year's schedule. I wrote each of them a note requesting a spot in their respective fields. The worst they could tell me was no. As luck would have it, I was gifted a spot into next month's Stella Artois Open in Guatemala. A huge opportunity for me that came about from keeping the peddle down. I'm excited about this opportunity. As we look further down the line, I have signed up for the PGA Tour Canada Q School as well in early April in California. This is another grand opportunity to obtain my goal of getting into the PGA Tour system's pipeline. I've opted out of attempting PGA Tour China due to the complex travel logistics and financial strain this would bring.
So the immediate goal is to best prepare myself to play my best golf come March 27th in Guatemala for the 1st round of the Stella Artois Open. Following that two weeks later, The PGA Tour Canada Q School begins. These are the calendar highlighted events. In order to get the results I'm seeking, look no further than to the top of this page. Process, patience, attitude. That is my system to get where I want to go. 3 simple keys that I must carry out every single day. Thanks for your support and lets go get into that inner circle!
