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It is a wonderful thing for a non-exempt player to earn a berth in a PGA Tour event. It could easily be the most exciting week of that player’s life up to that point. It is no wonder that very few of the players who make a Monday qualifier ever make the cut in the actual tournament, for it is a bit overwhelming if you’ve never been there before. Some take the lack of success of Monday qualifiers as evidence that they do not deserve to be in the field, but trust me when I say that you have to play pretty damn well, under tremendous pressure to boot, to shoot a low enough score to qualify. It’s the big show, the red carpet, and once you play in one of them you only want more. No other event measures up to the PGA Tour.
Club professionals like me have a few other avenues to qualify for a Tour event. The Tour allots each PGA Section two spots (it used to be four) for Tour events held within the confines of that section. In this fashion I was able to qualify for both the Kemper Open and the now defunct Michelob Classic. The scores in these PGA Member qualifiers are usually slightly higher than in the Open qualifier, as the fields are smaller and generally not as strong. Another way for a club pro to get into Tour events is to win the National Club Professional Championship, which not only pays $50,000 to the winner but offers 6 exemptions to Tour tournaments as well. I was fortunate enough to win in 2001, and with those 6, plus an exemption into the PGA Championship (earned by finishing in the top 25), plus exemptions into the Kemper and the Michelob for winning the Middle Atlantic Section Championship and earning Section Player of the Year honors, I had a grand total of 9 tournaments I could have played in 2002. Alas, a recurring back injury cut my season short, and I was limited to playing in 5 events, still the most I had ever played in for a single season.
There is one other way to get into a Tour event, and it is easily the most controversial method of qualifying- the Sponsor’s Exemption. This is how both Annika and Michelle achieved their spots, as well as all the other women who have since played in various men’s events, including Laura Davies, Se Ri Pak, and Jan Stephenson. Tournament sponsors put up large amounts of money to have their name prominently associated with the event. One of the perks the sponsors receive for their substantial monetary contribution is the ability to invite 8 players of their choice to play in the event. The players can basically come from anywhere, and it is only this year that a minimum handicap requirement (scratch) has been placed on amateurs that the committee might invite. This new rule partially protects the integrity of the field by keeping a sponsor from inviting a celebrity or perhaps a local sports hero to play in order to boost ticket sales and general tournament buzz, both important considerations, as the sponsor seeks to make as much money as possible off of the gate to offset its own expenses as well as to donate as much as possible to charity.
The subject of sponsor exemptions is one sure to inspire debate. In a perfect world the PGA Tour would fund all of its own tournaments and only the best players who earned their spots would tee it up. If this were the case we would probably see the end of the Monday 4-spot qualifier, the spots for club pros, any exemptions for local tournament winners, and sponsor exemptions (there would be no sponsors). Would this make a tournament better? Would it make it more interesting? Would the field be stronger? Does anyone really care who plays after the top 60 or so players? It could be argued that at least the open qualifiers and the club pros had to play for their spot. It can also be noted that every week there is a list of alternates who only get in if someone already in the field drops out. This particular list is usually occupied by at least some players whose names you would recognize. They may have slipped down the list of exempt players by failing to make the top 125, or they may have just come out of Q-school. Whatever the case, the guys on that list know that every qualifier and sponsor exemption is taking a spot that would have been theirs.
In order to get a sponsor’s exemption you first have to ask for one. I recently read that the average sponsor receives 100 or more letters from players asking for a spot in the field without qualifying. Many factors go into deciding just who gets these prized spots. As in all facets of life, it always pays to know someone. It might be the son of a good friend of high ranking officer in the sponsoring corporation who has just turned pro. It might be a tour pro who once played with the tournament chairman in a pro-am. It might be a college star trying to earn his card without going to Q-school. It might be a Q-school grad whose number doesn’t quite get him into the event. The sponsor is either doing someone a favor, or trying to increase the interest in the event.
Inviting Michelle Wie to a tournament has already proven to be a home-run. Ticket sales and media coverage both increase tremendously, while the accompanying buzz is palpable. Everyone, including myself, is intensely interested to see how she will do. Was the Sony Open a fluke, a performance built on familiarity with the course? That might be a consideration if this wasn’t a 14-year old girl we were talking about. Nothing like this has ever come along before, and anyone who pretends to know what might come of it all is fooling themselves. The variables are almost infinite: anything could happen. She could continue to improve and win a women’s event this year, or she could slump and not win anything. She could make a cut on the Men’s Tour, or she could shoot embarrassingly high scores and back off for a while. The possibilities are endless, and they are all tantalizing.
I do think, however, that Michelle, and any other women who want to test themselves against the men, should try to qualify for events in the same fashion that non-exempt men have to (Michelle has played in the Sony Open qualifier). It would certainly earn my respect and admiration were they to pass the same tests that I face in order to reach the highest level. I can’t fault anyone for accepting free entrance into events so difficult to qualify for, and certainly players such as Charles Howell and Tiger weren’t 4-spotting when they earned their card without playing in Q-school. Nevertheless, I believe that this is the way for women to begin to challenge the men, from the same tees and in the same qualifiers. I’m sure that Michelle will get plenty of free passes to men’s events, but she should continue to try to qualify as well. This would only serve to earn her more respect from her male counterparts, and as a true competitor she would have something to be even more proud of than a sponsor’s exemption.