Frequently Asked Questions about Q-School
Originally posted in November 2022, but updated for 2023
It’s been a little quiet on my blog but I have been very busy practicing and preparing for Stage II of Q-School. In less than three weeks, I will head to Florida to the Plantation Golf Club in Venice. The area was hit hard by Hurricane Ian so Stage II was postponed by a month. My brother will be back on my bag and my parents will be there to support me, so I am looking forward to it.
This weekend, I will be back in Salem for my fundraiser at Salem Golf Club. In case you missed it, Salem Golf Club is hosting an 18 hole scramble THIS Saturday (10/29) with a shotgun start at 9 a.m. There’s still openings if you want to play. Check out the details in my post here.
Many of you have been asking questions about Q-School and I thought an FAQ might be helpful. To be honest, I am learning right alongside all of you and the process is pretty complicated. There are still certain things I am trying to figure out. But here’s what I can share with you so far. As I make progress toward the LPGA, I’ll keep you all posted!
1. What is Q-School?
Q-School is an abbreviation for qualifying school. It is not school. It is a series of tournaments that golfers must progress through in order to gain status on the LPGA tour.
2. How does Q-School work?
Q-School has a series of tournaments, over three stages, where players must make the cut in order to progress to the next stage. The first stage is open to woman with a handicap of 4.0 or less on courses with an average length of 6,200 yards. It is held in Palm Springs in mid-August at three different courses. About 350 women usually sign up. Golfers play each of the courses in the first three rounds. After the third round, a cut is made to the top 125 players. The final round is played on the Dinah Shore Tournament course at Mission Hills and the top 95 players (plus ties) advance to Stage II.
Stage II is composed on the 100+ golfers who advanced from Stage I as well as players from the LPGA tour outside the top 150 and those ranked #36 – #125 on the current year’s Epson Tour. In 2022, there are 186 players in the field. The tournament is four days over two courses with approximately 45 players advancing to Q-Series (aka Stage III.) I say “approximately” because it depends on the size and strength of the field and the LPGA reserves the right to adjust the final number who advance. They won’t announce the number that will advance until just before the tournament starts. Stage II was postponed in 2022 due to Hurricane Ian. It is now scheduled for November 17-20 for Venice, Florida.
The final stage of Q-School is called Q-Series and those advancing from Stage II are joined by LPGA tour members ranked #101 – #150 and Epson tour members ranked #11-#35. In the past few years, this has consisted of eight rounds at two difference courses, with a cut after the first four rounds. In 2023, the LPGA modified Q-Series to six rounds, with a cut after four rounds. This stage is played at the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail’s Magnolia Grove Golf Course in Mobile, Ala. Somewhere around the top 40 in the final round earn their LPGA status, also known as their “card”.
3. What is the Epson tour?
The Epson tour (formerly known as the Symetra Tour) is a development tour for players who did not qualify for the LPGA tour. Players on the LPGA tour who do not have the status to get into all LPGA tournaments can petition to play in Epson events.
4. What does it mean to have “status” on the LPGA/Epson tour?
Status is a prioritization process that determines who can play in LPGA and Epson Tour events. LPGA tournaments usually have a field of about 130-144 players. There are a lot more golfers who would like to play in those tournaments. In order to determine who gets in, players are ranked based on their past performance and earnings. Over the course of year, some players on the tour perform well and move up the rankings and others move down. Additionally, every year, a crop of new players turns professional and want to join the tour. Q-School is a way of establishing where those newly professional players will land on the priority list as well as giving those who didn’t perform as well in the past year the opportunity to stay on the tour.
5. If you turned professional, why do you have to play in Qualifying School?
Turning professional is really just a matter of announcing that you are no longer an amateur golfer. Simply turning professional does not allow you access to play in an LPGA or Epson tournament. As mentioned in the previous answer, there are more players than spots. Your status is your spot on the priority list for tournaments. For those already on the tour, their play in the previous year establishes status for the coming year. For those who are newly turned professional, qualifying school serves as the way to establish that priority. There are other tours, such as the Cactus Tour and the Women’s All Pro Tour, which are comparable to Single A league teams in baseball. The goal is to work your way up to the major leagues, the LPGA. Q-School is the way to do that. The farther you advance in Q-School, the higher on the priority list you move up.
6. What tournaments can you play in based on your status?
Players are prioritized by the way they finished in Q-School, all the way down through Stage I. If there were 150 players who finished ahead of me on the Epson tour (so not counting those who achieved their LPGA status) then I would be #151. When players sign up for a tournament, the lower your number, the more likely you are to get in. If there are 150 spots in a tournament and I am #151, I have to wait to see if someone who is in the top 150 decides not to play.
There are also categories with priority over others. For example, some players who have exemptions, LPGA players who can’t get into the LPGA tournament that week. Others might win a tournament early in the season and that moves them up to a prioritized category.
Over the course of the season, priority will reshuffle several times based on pay and performance. A player who performs well will be making more money than those who are not playing well. They will move up the priority list.
Each tournament also has a few exemptions, which are special invitations. I received a sponsor’s exemption in 2021 and 2022 from the Cambia Portland Classic. There are also spots for golfers who play in the Monday qualifier, which is an 18 hole tournament where the top 1 or 2 players get a spot in the tournament.
So there are a number of ways to get in, but until you’re very high up on the money list (meaning you have played really well in many tournaments and maybe won a few) you’re not going to know very far in advance which tournaments you can play in. Playing well in Q-School and gaining LPGA status is the best way to improve your chances of getting into tournaments.
7. What happens if you don’t get LPGA status?
I can play on the Epson Tour and I can play in Monday qualifiers for LPGA tournaments.
8. What happens if you don’t get Epson status?
Players who do not advance after three rounds at Stage I will no longer have any status on the Epson Tour. This is new in 2023. Those players can play in other tours, like the Cactus Tour, the Women’s All Pro Tour and the NXXT Women’s Pro Golf Tour.
9. Can you sign up for any professional tournament?
Sort of. See my explanation in “What tournaments can you play in based on your status?” answer. I can sign up for Monday qualifiers at LPGA tournaments and attempt to get in the field that way.
10. When does the professional golf season start?
The LPGA golf season starts in January and goes through November. The Epson tour starts in March and runs through October. The other tours are kind of all over the map.
11. How do you make money through professional golf?
You win! No seriously, you need to play well. The purses have improved in women’s golf, but you still need to play well in order to make enough money to pay for all the expenses associated with traveling and playing on the tour. For example, the purse at the Portland Classic is $1.5 million. This year’s winner, Andrea Lee, won $225,000. Tenth place made $27,782. When you consider that players must often fly across the country, rent a car, find a place to stay and pay a caddie a week’s wages, there’s not a lot left over. Playing well improves your status and it’s how you make enough money to keep playing on the tour. Your rank on the money list at the end of the year is what decides whether or not you keep you card or go back to Q-school again.
