“Well, that sounds awful.”
Those were the words of James Nicholas as he climbed into his car after a disappointing PGA Tour Q School run in the second stage in Valdosta, Georgia.
The 28-year-old spent 13 holes with Nicholas at Kinderloo Forest Golf Club, tying for a place in the top 15 to qualify for next week’s final stage, before Friday’s final round was canceled due to inclement weather just after noon ET. Just over two hours later, the score returned to 54 holes and the entire round was abandoned, per Q School rules.
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Nicholas and several other players who were up within the cut line when the horn sounded, had their clutch performance nullified and headed home instead. Nicholas ended up missing by one shot.
The climactic conclusion saw one of the two second stage venues complete just three rounds. The final round in Dothan, Alabama, was not even challenged as a storm delayed the third round on Thursday and ended on Friday. Three other sites – Palm Coast, Florida; Savannah, Georgia. and Tucson, Ariz. – each made it to their originally scheduled 72 holes.
The PGA Tour’s Q-School Bylaws state: Any “Official” Qualifying Stage 1 or 2 round not completed by the end of the last scheduled day of competition will be canceled and results up to the last completed round will stand unless at least half of the field has completed the round. In this case, play must be temporarily suspended and completed when conditions permit. Completion may not take more than one additional day. Under no circumstances will play be resumed for at least half of the field to complete the play and play will not be extended for an additional day.
In Valdosta, none of the groups had finished. The first group was on the penultimate hole and the final group was on the 8th hole. The last line of the bylaws, common to all events on the Korn Ferry Tour (with the exception of the KFT Championship), prohibits restarting play in the final round if a round cannot be completed that day, so when officials determined the round could not restart until 2:45 p.m. ET at the earliest, there was no chance the round could begin before sunset at 5:31 p.m. ET.
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“This is a really tough situation for the regulatory authorities,” Nicholas said in a video shared to his Instagram page. “They don’t set the rules. It’s the rules that say things are the way they are. Personally, I think the rules need to change.”
On Friday, Nicholas was 4 under with just one par after 13 holes, but because there were no live scores for each hole, the online leaderboard only reflected scores through nine holes when play stopped. He shot within the cut line at 6 under along with five other players, including Gunnar Breun, who came out at 4 under and was still within numbers with three holes remaining. Broin’s rival, Jonathan Brightwell, reportedly shot 7 under par for the round, 5 under through five holes on the back nine, and was a few strokes safe before being thrown off the course.
This return appears to have been particularly upsetting to Mr. Bloin and Mr. Brightwell. Broin finished 133rd in PGA Tour Americas points this season and was looking to secure at least conditional Korn Ferry Tour status by making the final stage. Brightwell has not played on a PGA Tour-sanctioned tour with KFT since 2022.
Nicholas, on the other hand, has a good safety net. He already holds a full KFT card entering this fall’s KFT Championship and was only competing in the second stage for a chance to win one of five PGA Tour cards up for grabs in the final stage starting Thursday in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida.
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“I’m fully booked for next year’s Korn Ferry Tour, so I’m not too upset,” Nicholas said, “but if it wasn’t — and a lot of the players who were playing great today, I think they’ve moved themselves into the numbers. You’ve been working all year, your whole career, to get through Q-school, and then the meteorologist says you can’t go to the game, or the rules official says you can’t go.” Get out there and play.
“It sucks, it’s not easy, it’s not fun, but those are the rules.”
North Carolina native Ryan Barnett won the medal in Valdosta at 14 under, two strokes behind Tennessee’s Hunter Wolcott. Former PGA Tour pros Doc Redman, Roger Sloan and Joey Garber were among those who advanced. Notable players advancing from the other four sites include Ryo Ishikawa, Fred Biondi, Norman Xiong, Ted Potter Jr., Jim Herman, Brandon Wu, Turk Pettit, Nick Gabrelsik, Luke Guthrie and Spencer Levin.
Among those missing at the five sites were Blaze Brown, Jimmy Walker, Nick Watney, Scott Piercy, Andrew Landry, Austin Cook, Sung Kang, Anthony Paolucci, Cole Hammer, and Dylan Meyer. Meyer, a former standout at the University of Illinois, went 9-under through 36 holes in Dothan, Alabama, and shot a 10-over 82 in the third and final round. He dropped from third place to T-44, missing the cut by seven strokes with one over.
