2009 Q-School

The third and final stage of the PGA Tour Qualifying School, the most grueling six rounds of golf on the PGA Tour, ended on Monday. The top 25 finishers and ties receive their PGA Tour card and are exempt from qualifying for most PGA Tour events for 2010. The medalist was Troy Merritt from Boise State, who played on the Nationwide Tour in 2009. Merritt shot 22 under par. Jeff Maggert finished second and will play his twentieth consecutive year on the PGA Tour. Rickie Fowler, the Oklahoma State All-American finished eleventh. Fowler almost made the top 125 money winners on the PGA Tour in 2009 playing only three events and probably would have been able to bypass the Qualifying School if the Viking Classic was not rained out in Mississippi!

The best story from the PGA Tour Qualifying School was J.P. Hayes. Last year in the last round of the second stage of the Q-School, Hayes first called a two-stroke penalty on himself because his caddie changed the type of golf ball he was playing during the round but he still made the cut to the third and final stage of the Q-School. However, Hayes later determined that the replacement ball he used was a prototype that was not yet approved by the USGA, he notified a PGA Tour official and was disqualified. This year (with a new caddie I assume), Hayes easily qualified for the 2010 PGA Tour finishing in a tie for eighth place.

Tom Pernice, Jr., Jonathan Kaye, Shaun Micheel, Tim Herron and David Duval all failed to qualify.