Olde Sycamore Round Two
I shot a second round 3 under 69 in the TarHeel Tour event today. Almost a carbon copy of yesterday’s round. I had 27 putts and barely missed another 7 that I hit very very well. I finished with an eagle on 18 after hitting a utility iron to 4 feet. I’m in fourth place, 3 shots out of first. It looks like we’re going to have a chance to play tomorrow. Hurricane Ophelia isn’t projected to have an effect on Charlotte.
I found out today that the PGA Tour decided to cancel the pre-qualifier for Q-School. They had set this up for entrants who were deemed “non-competitive” and expected about 180 players. They ended up with about 20, so they gave all of them a free pass into the first round. One of the pre-qualifiers was going to be at Florence CC - the stage 1 site I’ve been at the last three years. Instead, they made Florence an overflow site and (rumor has it) they gave the pre-qualifiers the opportunity to go to Florence as their first stage site. None of this is enormously troubling to me, but it does point to some of the strange ways the PGA Tour conducts the Q-School process. First, if you’re going to have a pre-qualifier, have it regardless of how many entrants you get. You scheduled it - you have it. Second, if the rumor is true and people are getting to choose their stage 1 site (including the overflow site), then they’re getting an advantage (albeit a small one) over the rest of the entrants. Again, these are minor things, but when you’re talking about something as important as Q-School with an entry fee equal to 10\% of most players’ budgets, these things should be treated properly. Anyway, end of rant.