Eighty six American players will be teeing it up in the first stage of the European Tour’s Q-school in the coming weeks, more than double the amount of American players who attempted to qualify for the European Tour last fall.
But according to The Scotsman’s Martin Dempster (and everyone else who’s followed the American PGA Tour’s decision to change their qualifying process), it’s not totally unexpected. “The decision by more Americans to turn their attention to Europe in an attempt to get a foot on the ladder is also likely to have been influenced by changes to the PGA Tour Qualifying School,” Dempster writes. “It no longer offers instant promotion to the money-spinning main circuit, with the developmental Web.com Tour now being the primary path to get a PGA Tour card.”
Maybe some of them are paying attention to the example set by Peter Uihlein, the 23-yr-old American who many remember for his impressive 4-0 performance in the 2009 Walker Cup and then winning the US Amateur the very next year. Uihlein decided to turn pro back in December of 2011, but failed in his bid to earn a tour card through the PGA Tour’s Q-School earlier that fall.
Chubby Chandler, who those in-the-know are familiar with as one of the more popular players’ agents representing International Sports Management in Europe, understood why someone like Uihlein would consider traveling across the Atlantic to chase his dream. “It is a pioneering move by him – the obvious step would have been to try to establish his career in the United States,” Chandler said. “But having seen players like Lee Westwood, Charl Schwartzel, Louis Oosthuizen and Darren Clarke build careers by playing all over the world, including America, Peter has been encouraged by that. I’m sure that he will benefit enormously from the experience.”
In fact, Uihlein already has. Opting to play his way into the professional ranks, Uihlein spent all of 2012 competing on the European circuit, before finally breaking through with his first professional win back in May of this year. In just a little over a year, he went from having no status and simply hoping to get some playing experience to securing a tour card and getting inside the top 100 of the Official World Golf Ranking.
“I think people must be looking at their success over here and seeing it as a potential route, especially as both Peter (Uihlein) and Brooks (Koepka) chose to go this way deliberately,” said Mike Stewart, the Qualifying School director. “As they have both admitted, it has been good for them to be faced with new challenges in a new environment on a weekly basis and it is certainly healthy for the European Tour that others are deciding to try and follow the same route.”
Obviously it remains to be seen whether or not more American players like Brooks Koepka and Peter Uihlein can enjoy reasonable success competing in a totally different competitive arena opposite the PGA Tour and an ocean away, but most feel they have something in Europe that they no longer have in America.
That something? An opportunity.
Scott's Golf Blog 