Peter Williams: It's a long shot down the green to golfing glory

COMMENT

Even if you think you've got the game to play in golf's major league, the US PGA Tour, your chances of getting a player's card through the qualifying process are about a quarter of 1 per cent. That's the sobering conclusion to an analysis of the three-stage qualifying process currently under way.

There were 999 starters in 12 stage-one tournaments. The top 23 and ties from each tournament progressed to stage two. There they were joined by players outside the top 150 on this year's PGA Tour money list, and those beyond the top 50 on the second-level Nationwide Tour.

In stage two there's another six tournaments, each with about 80 players. About 20 from each make it to the final qualifying tournament, in December. Also in that final will be players ranked 126 to 150 on this year's PGA Tour money list, and the 21st to 50th placegetters from the Nationwide Tour.

After six rounds at the PGA West course in California next week, a grand total of 30 players' cards will be awarded to contest the 2005 PGA Tour and its 50 tournaments, most of them worth at least $US5 million (NZ$7.2 milion). Therein lies the lure. The money is huge but the odds are long. About 1225 golfers will have competed for those 30 cards. Palmerston North's Tim Wilkinson is already in the final but his real test is to come. Grant Waite, Steven Alker and Bradley Heaven have considerable work ahead to even make it to California.

Nick Flanagan was the toast of Australian golf when he won the US Amateur last year. He's gone pro, impressively won his stage-one qualifier, but was outside the top 20 in stage two. Now he'll be faced with a year of scrounging for tournament starts until the purgatory of the qualifying process starts again.

Mahal Pearce knows all about that. Despite winning the New Zealand Open in 2003, Pearce doesn't have a card to play anywhere outside the Australasian Tour. After missing the four-round cut at the European Tour final qualifying school last week he's at least able to play on the second-level Challenge Tour. But that's where a lucrative tournament might be worth just €150,000.

New Zealand now has more tournament professionals than ever and the prospect of hardship isn't stopping them. History tells us few will ever make it. But Vijay Singh's evolution from a club pro in Borneo to world number one is the benchmark for all on the wrong end of golf's food chain.

Trying to qualify for a professional circuit has financial obligations designed to keep out those not committed. By the time Tim Wilkinson tees it up in California next week he'll have paid $US12,000 in entry fees. There were 77 players on the US PGA Tour this year who made at least $1 million. And they didn't get there by thinking about the miniscule percentages of the qualifying school.

- THE HERALD ON SUNDAY