PGA Tour Q-School weather forecast: Windy, rainy, with a good chance of double-bogeys
More than one competitor in this week’s PGA Tour Q-School presented by Korn Ferry likely glanced at the extended weather forecast for Ponte Vedra Beach and muttered to himself – or perhaps shouted to the heavens -- “are you kidding me?”
It’s tough enough to face 72 holes with your livelihood at stake. It’s another thing to have to play high-caliber golf under wind advisories and with the occasional shower to complete the miserable weather package.
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However, with no lightning in the forecast, the field of 168 players will have to push forward at the TPC Sawgrass Dye’s Valley and Sawgrass Country Club, beginning on Thursday and wrapping up on Sunday.
At stake: the top five players, plus ties, will earn PGA Tour cards for the 2024 season. The next 40 will have full Korn Ferry Tour status, with the remaining players, depending on their scores, getting conditional Korn Ferry status or relegation to the PGA Tour Americas.
Each player will compete two days at each course, on a rotating basis. The Valley will play to a par-70 and Sawgrass par-72.
Q-School weather will be bad, and could get worse
The final practice-round day gave the players a taste of what’s to come: the temperatures will stay in the 60s all week and the forecast as of late Wednesday afternoon called for a 40 percent chance of rain on Thursday, increasing to 70-to-80 percent on the weekend. There is a coastal flood advisory and the wind is expected to gust more than 30 mph all week.
The conditions are likely to be worse at the Sawgrass Country Club, located across A1A from the TPC Sawgrass with holes exposed to the ocean.
Players getting in some last-minute tune-ups on the practice facility put up a brave front.
After all, who would admit that weather conditions will get to them? And if they did, they’re probably not going to be in contention for one of the precious Tour cards anyway.
“I’ve done this my whole life,” said North Carolina native and former University of Virginia player Thomas Walsh, who recalled junior and college golf played on raw February and March days that will approximate what the field will face this week on the First Coast. “I think it’s going to be brutal. You shoot par all four days and you’ll get a Tour card.”
Michael Johnson, who won the 2010 Junior Players Championship at the Players Stadium Course, said players at this stage in their professional lives have experienced every time of weather Mother Nature can throw their way.
“I’ve played well in bad weather … I think we all have at one time or another,” said the Auburn graduate. “Honestly, you have to be positive about it. If you’re negative, you’ll be the first guy to quit. It’s easy to say you’ve got to be positive but you just have to go do it.”
Players are mindful that weather is bad for everyone
One mantra players should keep repeating to themselves is that it’s not raining or the wind blowing just on them … it’s the same for everyone.
“Hopefully [his caddie] tells me that a million times,” Johnson said.
John Pak, who won Jacksonville University’s Sea Best Invitational in 2019 at the Valley Course, is also an eternal optimist.
“I’d like to think I’d step up to the challenge,” he said. “No matter what the weather is, I think everyone can attest to what this means for them.”
Walsh said that weather can actually cull the best among the field by the end of the week.
"I'd rather have an absolute knockdown, drag out than an easy week," Walsh said. "When the conditions are brutal if think you best guys rise to the top. When [the final 72-hole] score is 28-under anybody can win."
Pak among past winners at the Valley, Sawgrass
Pak wasn’t sure his victory at the Sea Best more than four years ago would give him an advantage in the two rounds he will play there.
“Maybe a little bit of a confidence boost,” said the former Florida State player. “This is completely different. It’s a par-70 versus a par-72 [for the Sea Best], the rough is deeper and very patchy. You get a lot of quirky lies.”
Fred Biondi and Ricky Castillo were the co-medalists at the 2023 Sea Best for the University of Florida, and Castillo won in 2020 as a freshman.
Three players won the individual title at the Sawgrass Country Club at The Hayt, the college tournament hosted by the University of North Florida: Brian Carlson of Purdue (2018), Brendon Jelley of Oklahoma State (2016) and Kevin Chappel of UCLA (2007).
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: PGA Tour Q-School field will have to contend with high wind, rain
