How Low Can You Go?

In preparation for this year’s PGA Tour Q school, professional golfers descended upon the Phoenix Valley to compete in two events on the Asher Tour, a long-running, California-based mini tour. 

To get to Ak-Chin Southern Dunes Golf Club in Maricopa – host of the Asher Tour’s second event – players drive past Whirlwind Golf Course, host of Q school’s final stage in 2017. Any time an event is played near Whirlwind, players will raise the final stage leaderboard from the dead. The scoring required that week was so low it has become legend. 

“It took, like, 20 under to get through at Whirlwind. That was crazy, man,” I heard this week. While the 2017 Q school scores were sizzling, the Whirlwind mythology has become a bit exaggerated. In fact, to earn guaranteed starts for the following season, players had to shoot at least 14 under. Based on the Asher Tour scores posted over the past two weeks, professional golfers are preparing to go lower this year. 

The 54-hole Southern Dunes Classic delivered scorching scores on a course with a 76.5 rating that measures more than 7,400 yards. Stuart Macdonald, a 28-year-old Canadian, shot 20 under to win the $18,000 first-place check. Kyle Karazissis found the zone in the final round, shooting a 12-under-par 60, with pars on his final two holes, to catapult 39 spots up the leaderboard to fourth place. Cracking the top 10 required a 14-under total, and 32 players shot 10 under or better. If you shot 9 under or worse, you didn’t earn a check. I paid the $1,350 entry fee, ambled my way to a three-day total of 8 under as I wrestled with an uncooperative putter, and drove home empty-handed. Thanks for coming.

Welcome to mini-tour golf before Q school. 

‍How are you preparing for Q school? It’s a question frequently posed to players in the fall. The answer is simple: The few mini-tour events played this time of year are a last chance to gain confidence and prepare for the ultimate test.

Macdonald, a friend who has a win and a runner-up on PGA Tour Canada this season, added another victory to his resume at Southern Dunes. Macdonald is a new father to 1-month-old Graham, and $18,000 pays for a lot of diapers. Macdonald’s flawless final round included six birdies and an eagle, and he beat Chris Korte by two strokes. Korte has two runner-up finishes on PGA Tour Canada this year. 

Macdonald nearly earned his PGA Tour card in 2021, finishing 33rd in the season-long Korn Ferry Tour points race. (The top 25 were awarded cards.) Although he lost his Korn Ferry card in 2022, he has been a model of consistency in his home country this summer and made the cut at the RBC Canadian Open, where he finished T-57. A win on the Asher Tour before heading to Q school solidified his place as a player to watch. 

One of my playing partners in the first two rounds at Southern Dunes was a tall 38-year-old Californian with a name straight out of a film. For Bryan Bigley, the tournament was a reintroduction to competition. “Bigs” plays like someone with 15 seasons of tour golf under his belt, not wasting time and sure of what he’s doing. In 2019, Bigley lost in a playoff in Wichita, Kan., on the Korn Ferry Tour to Henrick Norlander; it was a win that secured Norlander a PGA Tour card while Bigley lost his status at the end of the season. 

These days, Bigley gives lessons a few days a week in northern California. He loves helping juniors and players committed to improving, but doesn’t have time for those trying to get a two-for-one lesson special. After all, $100 doesn’t go as far as it used to. His lesson schedule is booked as he’s preparing for Q school. Bigley opened with an encouraging 4-under round but followed with 70 and 71. To stay sharp, he plans to line up a few money games before he begins the first stage next month in New Mexico.

The other member of our group was Franklin Huang, a 2018 Stanford graduate who was a teammate with Maverick McNealy and Brandon Wu. Huang has charted his own unique path to Q school, and his game dwarfs his stature. 

Huang worked for a tech startup out of college that aimed to set up easily accessible, localized cloud services across the country. He barely touched a club in his first year of work before he began considering a career in professional golf. He decided to stash away his paychecks in preparation for his PGA Tour pursuit. While some players would edge him out in experience, he wouldn’t have to worry about how to pay for Q school. 

Huang shot 13 under and finished T-4 in last week’s Las Sendas Classic in Mesa. He then birdied his 36th hole at Southern Dunes, making the cut on the number and giving himself a chance to earn a paycheck. Huang records every shot he plays for a stat program. You don’t need a degree in applied mathematics to do this, but he has one. 

When I navigated Q school successfully for the first time in that mythical 2017 final stage at Whirlwind, I tested myself as often as I could leading up to the tournament. After making the longest three-footer of my life to post 14 under, I waited anxiously to see if I had done enough to secure a Korn Ferry Tour card. When the scores were official and my job was secured, glorious tears flowed. Events like the two recent Asher Tour events helped me stress-test my game and win a job that year.

For me, the first stage of Q school is set for Oct. 24-27 at Walden on Lake Conroe Golf Course outside Houston, and I began my stretch run of preparation at Las Sendas, which happens to be my home course. It’s a Robert Trent Jones Jr. design that loops around a mountain and has narrow, undulating greens, spectacular views and an unfriendly, biting desert. Alice Cooper hosts his annual charity tournament there. While Cooper has charmed a few snakes on stage, the “Uncle Alice Rule” dictates that no one looks for a ball in the Las Sendas desert. 

I shot 64-65-70 and finished third, which came with a $4,200 check. From the outside, it looks like a nice boost. One might think the earnings pay for a large portion of the $5,500 entry fee for PGA Tour Q school. Not cashing at Southern Dunes, however, left me barely profitable for the two events. 

In the first two rounds at Las Sendas, I played with Brent Grant, a PGA Tour member. Grant, 27, won on the Korn Ferry Tour in 2022 and in March he had a T-8 at the Corales Puntacana Championship. The free-swinging Grant is talkative on the course and moves like someone impervious to pressure. Perhaps that’s why he is ranked third in total driving and sixth in strokes gained off the tee on the PGA Tour. But at 167th in the FedExCup standings, he is playing for his job. The top 125 at the end of the Fall Series keep their card, and Grant has only a few starts left to make his move. 

The condition of Phoenix-area courses at the end of summer is quite the contrast to the lush conditions players see on the PGA Tour. To enter an event on the Asher Tour as a PGA Tour member is a stark reminder of what you’re fighting for. While Grant hit some impressive shots, his 4-under total wasn’t good enough to earn a check. 

I played freely in the first two rounds, taking a two-shot lead into the final round. I was relaxed when I showed up for the final round. Somewhere between my range session and my opening tee shot, however, I became nervous. Thoughts of This is my home course…I’ve got the lead…I should win appeared in my head. That anxiety caused me to play unnecessarily conservative off the 1st tee. 

While watching the Notre Dame-Ohio State football game last Saturday night, the commentators emphasized the difference in the Fighting Irish’s strategy from when the teams met last year. In the previous meeting, Coach Marcus Freeman said Notre Dame played not to lose but on Saturday, the Irish would play to win.

You play to win until you accidentally play not to lose. Usually that realization comes too late. That’s what happened on the 1st tee. I hit a conservative club on an uncommitted line into the water. Double Bogey. In all the years I’ve called Las Sendas home, I’ve never made a decision like that on the 1st tee. Pressure causes you to do inexplicable things. 

It has been a while since I’ve put the kind of pressure on myself that has clouded my judgment. The double bogey was the difference between finishing second and third. Costly. 

But here’s the thing: It’s better to break down in a mini-tour event than on the final hole of Q school, when the pressure can become suffocating. It’s like building muscle or drinking whiskey – you can build a tolerance to the heat quickly.

So while most of us didn’t turn much of a profit in the two Asher Tour events, we competed to learn something about ourselves – something we can’t find anywhere else. And something money can’t buy.

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