Canadian AJ Ewart said his goal was to win the PGA Tour Q School, even though there was little evidence to support the optimism behind that lofty goal. Still, he was there Sunday afternoon, capping off the best week of his career, and perhaps his life, with an unlikely win and a 2026 PGA Tour membership.
Ewart, 26, shot a 4-under 66 at the Dye’s Valley Course in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., for a 72-hole score of 14-under 266 and a two-stroke victory to earn him one of five tour memberships.
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The other four to earn their 2026 tour cards were Canada’s Adam Svensson, Argentina’s Alejandro Tosti, Colombia’s Marcelo Lozo and American Dylan Wu, who defeated Canada’s Ben Silverman in a playoff.
“I came here with the goal of winning a golf tournament,” Ewart said. “It wasn’t necessarily about being in the top five or top 25. It was about preparing to win a golf tournament. So it feels great to accomplish that. It’s like the old saying, ‘Set small, fail small.’ I look at any tournament you go into and try to win. If you set your standards a little lower than that, you’re selling yourself a little short.”
Who can argue at this point?
Whatever his confidence level was, it wasn’t reflected in his career record or performance in 2025. He had four top 10s in 16 starts on this year’s PGA Tour Americas, but that was a sign of nothing to come of the past four days. In 2025, he also missed the cut in six of nine starts on the PGA Tour Canada. He only played in two tournaments on the PGA Tour, the 2022 and 2025 Canadian Open, and missed out on both.
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Additionally, he lost in a playoff at the penultimate PGA Tour Americas event of the year, missing out on earning a Korn Ferry Tour card.
“That playoff loss hurt,” he said. “But that’s what gave me the motivation to get back into horses. I knew I had a chance at Q School to go get a Korn Ferry Tour card and eventually a PGA Tour card. Things happen for a reason, and I think that’s to be expected. That gave me a little bit of encouragement and made me want to ride horses a little bit more. And here I am.”
The most drama on Sunday was the fifth and final card available on the PGA Tour, a playoff between Wu and Silverman. Previously, he earned PGA Tour membership through Q School, tied for top five. This year, the number of qualifying rounds was limited to five, in this case a playoff for fifth place.
Wu won with a 20-foot birdie putt on the first extra hole.
