It’s Korn Ferry Finals & (almost) PGA Tour Q-School Season

The great meritocracy of professional golf is about to go on full display. There’s no other sport where athletes quite literally have to earn their job each year. The brutality of being unemployed after one bad year and the allure of a few good weeks of golf taking someone away from waiting tables nights and weekends is fascinating.

Every year you’ll have players fighting for their jobs through the Korn Ferry Finals and PGA Tour Q-School that have won on the PGA Tour or haven’t played a professional event in their lives.

Obviously, the difference in playing for a million dollars a week and a hundred thousand is significant, but playing for a hundred thousand versus zero is even greater. Then there’s sponsorship, pension credits, healthcare, the list goes on.

Ryan French at MondayQ.com probably does the best of following the action and distilling the “rules.” Here’s his post that outlines the KFT Finals. There are 30 cards at stake with 10 players already locking one up. So, 20 still available and jockeying for positioning in the rankings for filling fields in the 2025 season. Oh, and just a job on a major tour as well.

The PGA Tour Q-School has gone through many iterations the last handful of years. First Stage doesn’t start until the second week of October, which now allows players in KFT Finals to double-dip and play both, if needed.

While the Tour deviated from being able to go from couch to Tour for a few years, 5 cards are available this year. It’s the familiar format of Pre-qualifying, First Stage, Second Stage, and Finals that most people probably remember. The number of PGA Tour cards available is fewer than the “old way,” but the next 40 players earn a KFT 2025 card, the following 20 earning exempt status for the Latin America swing of the PGA Tour Americas season and conditional KFT status, and the remaining Final Stage finishers earning KFT status. If you want to read about all of the qualification criteria, here’s the PGA Tour FAQ on Q-School.

Good luck to everyone participating!