Qualifying School

In professional golf the term qualifying school is used for the annual qualifying tournaments for leading golf tours such as the U.S. based PGA and LPGA Tours and the European Tour. A fixed number of players in the event win membership of the tour for the following season, otherwise known as a "tour card," meaning that they can play in most of the tour's events without having to qualify. They join the leaders on the previous year's money list/order of merit and certain other exempt players as members of the tour.

Getting through the qualifying school of an elite tour is very competitive and most professional golfers never achieve it. There can be up to four stages to negotiate, each of them like a regular golf tournament with only a small number of players going on to the next stage. The final qualifying school may be played over up to six rounds, compared with the standard four rounds in a professional golf tournament. However players who are successful at qualifying school can reach the elite level of competition very quickly.

Some lower status tours are open to any registered professional who pays a membership fee so they do not have a qualifying school.

The PGA Tour's was officially known as the PGA Tour Qualifying Tournament, but the organization also frequently refers to it as "Q-School." The system dated back to 1965. The 2012 edition (the final Q School that offered a direct path to the PGA Tour) involved four stages:

A number of players who earned PGA Tour privileges through a Top 25 finish on the Web.com Tour also played in the final stage in attempts to improve their status and order in the reshuffle. The reshuffle alternated between Q School and Web.com Tour graduates, with higher-finishing players getting more priority in tournaments. The initial reshuffle began with the Q School medalist, then 2nd place on the Web.com Tour money list (the money leader is fully exempt), second in Q School, and so on. The order would change according to season earnings after the eighth tournament of the season, the Masters, Players Championship, U.S. Open, and British Open, again with the highest earning players receiving higher priority into tournaments.

Web.com Tour graduates did not count against the 25. In the event that there were less than 25 after the Web.com Tour graduates were discounted, those in the next position were given PGA Tour cards, as in 2010 and 2011. In 2011, twenty-six golfers originally earned tour cards, which also included Web.com Tour graduates Roberto Castro and Mark Anderson. As there were fewer than 25 after Castro and Anderson were not counted, Nathan Green, Colt Knost, and John Huh were also given Tour cards for 2012. Huh was the most successful of the three, winning at Mayakoba, playing in all four stages of the FedEx Cup, and finishing 28th on the money list en route to Rookie of the Year honors. Knost did well enough to keep his Tour privileges, while former PGA Tour winner Green finished outside the Top 150.

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