Golfweek report: PGA Tour qualifier to be held at Dye's Valley, Sawgrass Country Club

Florida Times-Union
·2 min read
Cody Carroll of the University of North Florida hits out of one of the many bunkers at the Sawgrass Country Club during the 2022 Hayt, college invitational. Sawgrass will be one of the venues for the 2023 PGA Tour National Qualifying Tournament.
Cody Carroll of the University of North Florida hits out of one of the many bunkers at the Sawgrass Country Club during the 2022 Hayt, college invitational. Sawgrass will be one of the venues for the 2023 PGA Tour National Qualifying Tournament.

The PGA Tour National Qualifying tournament will be held at the TPC Sawgrass Dye's Valley and the Sawgrass Country Club in December.

The Tour hasn’t made an official announcement, but Golfweek obtained a letter from Sawgrass club president Dan Cavey, dated Jan. 30, to the membership that detailed how it will serve as one of the two courses to be used.

It noted: “The PGA Tour approached the Club to be a partner in hosting the PGA Tour Qualifying School or ‘Q School.’”

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“The PGA (Tour) is elevating Q-School to be a featured televised event and is very interested in holding it in Ponte Vedra Beach near their headquarters," the letter continued. "They want to structure it as a split field with 85 players daily at our course and 85 at the Valley Course.”

The tournament will offer five Tour cards under a new format. It also marks a return for the Tour to Sawgrass, which hosted The Players Championship from 1977-1981 until it moved to the TPC Sawgrass Stadium Course.

Sawgrass, a 27-hole layout designed by Ed Seay, hosts The Hayt, a college invitational held by the University of North Florida, and was the venue for the 2016 Junior Players Championship and Jacksonville Area Golf Association championships.

Last year, the final version of the Korn Ferry Tour Q-School was held at The Landings in Savannah, Ga.

For several years, the venue alternated between PGA West in Palm Desert, California, and Orange County National in Winter Garden, Florida. The latter recently was announced as the site of a LIV Golf event ahead of the Masters.

In recent years, the top 40 and ties at Q-School earned full status for the first 12 events on the Korn Ferry Tour, the development circuit for the PGA Tour. But beginning this year, the top five finishers and ties will earn PGA Tour status for the following season, creating a pathway for collegiate stars to go straight to the Tour and bypass spending a year on the Korn Ferry Tour. This marks the first time since 2012 that Q-School will provide a direct path to the PGA Tour.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Golfweek report: PGA Tour qualifier to be held at Sawgrass, Dye's Valley