JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – With a final-round 66 on Sunday at Furyk & Friends, Tommy Gainey became the first player to Monday qualify into a PGA Tour Champions event and go on to win since 2021.
“A weight has been lifted off my shoulders,” said Gainey, who had successfully earned one of three spots available into open qualifying into the 78-man fields three times since turning 50 in August. [He shot 64 to get into the field at Furyk & Friends.]
The victory makes Gainey exempt for the remainder of the season and all of 2026, which is a big deal given that it’s never been harder to gain entry onto the 50-and-over circuit, dubbed golf’s ultimate mulligan.
That’s because PGA Tour Champions Q-School officially has been discontinued, Golfweek has learned.
A note was sent to players last week confirming that the Tour’s board had signed off on the change to its regulations, removing one more avenue for 50-and-over dreamers to play their way on to the senior circuit.
“It’s a total bummer,” said Rob Labritz, a 54-year-old former PGA club pro who won the Final Stage of Q-School to earn his card in 2022 and has banked more than $1.5 million during his Champions tour career. “There’s a lot of guys coming up who have played the [PGA] Tour their whole life and they’re taking care of them, which I understand from a business standpoint. From a selfish standpoint of somebody who never played the Tour, it sucks but it is what it is.”
Making it through Final Stage of Q-School already was a longshot with only five cards available. The decision to do away with Q-School is to protect a group of players that don’t have enough career money, wins or total points but have made 300 or more starts on the PGA Tour.
Among the players who have arrived on the circuit in this precarious position in the last year include Mark Wilson (5 wins/392 starts); J.J. Henry (3 wins/578 starts); Bo Van Pelt (1 win/468 starts); Jason Bohn (2 wins/372 starts); and John Rollins (3 wins/450 starts). But last year, four of the spots at Q-School went to Denmark’s Soren Kjeldsen, who made 712 starts on the European circuit but just 58 on the PGA Tour, Australia’s Brendan Jones (54 starts) and Chile’s Felipe Aguilar and American Michael Wright, who both made just two career starts. (Sweden’s Freddie Jacobsen won once in 331 starts also earned exempt status.) Meanwhile, two-time major winner Angel Cabrera failed to get through and started the season with conditional status.
“That trend has to end,” said Champions tour veteran Billy Andrade. “It came from all our best players – guys like Ernie Els and Retief Goosen who sacrificed their lives to come over to play here and now we have guys who we have never heard of – no disrespect to them – and didn’t play the [PGA] Tour and they’re exempt and taking spots away from guys who’ve supported the Tour. I understand both sides to it and I can see why it seems like a closed shop but if you’re really good you can Monday qualify and work your way on our tour. It’s not totally closed; we’re just not having Q-School.”
Miller Brady, PGA Tour Champions president, said that it was hard to ignore the fact that there either were players on the verge of turning 50 or who had reached the magic age for eligibility recently who had paid their dues and had significant careers and they’re unable to get into tournaments. “We asked the PAC is that right or wrong? They determined that’s wrong,” he said. “They should at least have a chance and not be 10th on the alternate list every week. We’re going to put those spots into categories to benefit members of the PGA Tour.”
The door still will remain cracked open for players to take the Gainey route. Dana Quigley, Scott Parel, Mike Goodes and most recently New Zealand’s Steven Alker, who went from Monday qualifier to winning the season-long Charles Schwab Cup in 2022, are proof that if a player is good enough he will find a way to strike gold during the golden years.
The move to get rid of Q-School cuts at the core of a complicated question: What is the purpose of PGA Tour Champions? Is the senior circuit an entertainment product built around players with name recognition for the multiple pro-ams held each week or a cutthroat meritocracy of the best 50-and-over golfers where those who have stayed fit and are still hungry to earn a payday may beat up on aging greats like Fred Couples, Colin Montgomerie and Tom Lehman?
For the sponsors paying the freight, it’s a no-brainer that they’d rather go home saying they played with Boom Boom or Monty than Aguilar or Wright.
David Toms, a former Champions tour policy board member, said he’d had two players blame him for the policy change already. “And I didn’t have anything to do with it,” said Toms, who does remain involved on the Player Advisory Council. But he noted that there is a growing trend of seasoned pros who are having to beg for sponsor invites or Monday Q due to conditional status.
“J.J. Henry, John Rollins, Mark Wilson, all those guys, they need to be playing out here without having to play four pro-ams before the tournament starts on Friday,” he said. “Some of our best players came through the Q-School or Monday qualifying. There’s still a way for them to do so. The hard part is for the guy who lives in Australia to qualify. Is he going to come over here and try week to week?”
That can be a tough road as Labritz can attest. He made it into the field at Furyk & Friends but it was just his second time doing so in 22 attempts to Monday this season.
“I’ll be trying to do the Mondays and if I need to get a job I’ll get a job,” Labritz said.
Gainey’s triumph confirms it can be done but it just became that much harder for stories of club pros Jim Albus and Tom Wargo winning senior majors and former beer salesman Mark Johnson winning tournaments to emerge in the future. Journeyman pro Charlie Wi, 53, never made it through Q-School but rather rode a T-2 finish at the 2023 TimberTech Championship into a top-36 finish on the money list to earn full-exempt status but he still can relate to the disappointment of Labritz and the golfers who had been counting their days until they’d be eligible for Champions Tour Q-School.
“It kills a lot of dreams of coming out here,” Wi said. “You just have to play well when you get your chance.”
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