Need a refresher on Q-School?
What exactly is Q-School, why do players have to go through it and what happens after they do?
1. What is Q-School?
Q-School is the commonly used nickname for the LPGA’s qualifying process for members to gain or maintain status on the LPGA or Epson Tour. It is not school. It is a series of tournaments that golfers must progress through. The LPGA prefers the name “Pre-Qualifying”, “Qualifying” and “Final Qualifying” rather than Stage I, II and III. But old habits die hard.
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 advance to the next stage. Stage I is open to women 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 (and ties). 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. Players who make the cut after 54 holes earn partial status on the Epson Tour.
Stage II is composed of 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 were 186 players in the field. The tournament is four days over two courses (golfers play each course twice) 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. Players not advancing to the next stage earn their status on the Epson Tour.
(Stage II was postponed in 2022 due to Hurricane Ian. It was postponed again in 2024 for one week due to Hurricane Milton.)
The final stage of Q-School is called Q-Series, or “Final Qualifying” 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 five to eight rounds at two difference courses, with a cut after the first four rounds. In 2023, after trying a couple of years with eight rounds, the LPGA modified Q-Series to six rounds, with a cut after four rounds. In 2024, they have reduced it to five rounds, with a cut after four. This stage is played at the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail’s Magnolia Grove Golf Course in Mobile, Ala. The top 20 earn full LPGA status (also known as their “card”), and #21 – 40 receive partial status. Status means the ability to play on the LPGA tour. Players not finishing in the top 40 receive Epson Tour status.
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 in Stages II and III who do not receive their LPGA card receive status on the Epson Tour. Some players on the LPGA tour without full status can also petition to play in Epson events.
4. What about the players not listed above, like those ranked 100 and above on the LPGA and #1-10 on the Epson?
Players finishing in the top 100 on the LPGA maintain their status and do not have to return to Q-School. Players who finish in the top 10 on the Epson Tour automatically earn their LPGA status in lieu of playing in Q-School. (And in 2024, they gave LPGA status to the top 15 finishers on the Epson Tour. I don’t know if this will be standard practice going forward or not.)
5. 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. Professional 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, while 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.
6. Can amateurs play in Q-School?
Yes, amateurs can play in Stages I and II of Q-School. However, a player must turn professional before playing in the final stage of qualifying.
7. 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 I mentioned earlier, 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 for those who haven’t had the opportunity in previous years to earn that status. The farther you advance in Q-School, the higher on the priority list you move up.
8. 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. There are other players who will have priority as well, even if they didn’t play in Q-School, based on how they finished in the previous season. For example, in 2022, I finished Stage II in 110th place, but there were 194 players ahead of me based on the different categories beyond Q-School finish. When players sign up for a tournament, the lower their number, the more likely they are to get in. If there are 144 spots in a tournament and I am #195, I have to wait to see if the 50 or so players who are ranked ahead of me decide not to play. This does happen, more often later in the season than earlier. Players may be taking a week off, they may be injured, or they may have secured a spot in an LPGA tournament through a sponsor’s exemption or a Monday Qualifier.
Players who do not make the 54 hole cut in Stage I do not receive any Epson status, so the only Epson tournaments they can play in are those where they receive some sort of an exemption. (This changed in 2023. Prior to that, players who competed in Stage I received Epson status.)
9. Could this get any more complicated?
Actually, yes.
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. A player might win a tournament, which moves her up to a different category, giving her better status.
Another way a player can participate is through an exemption. Most tournaments have a few 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 one or two players get a spot in the tournament.
So there are a number of ways to get in, but without a number in the 140s (ish), there isn’t a guarantee they’ll get in. Not knowing very far in advance can make it challenging to plan travel, lodging, etc. Once a player has played well in several tournaments, they move up and have more security about which tournaments they will get into. Playing well in Q-School and maintaining that good play (short of gaining LPGA status right away!) is the best way to improve your chances of getting into tournaments.
10. What happens if you don’t get LPGA status?
I can play on the Epson Tour and in Monday qualifiers for LPGA tournaments. I can also play on other tours like the Cactus Tour, Women’s All Pro Tour and the NXXT Women’s Pro Golf Tour if I choose.
11. What happens if you don’t get Epson status?
Because I advanced to Stage II, I will have Epson status in the 2025 season. Players not advancing after three rounds at Stage I no longer receive status on the Epson Tour, which was new in the 2024 season. 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.
12. Can you sign up for any professional tournament?
Not really. 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. If I don’t have LPGA or Epson status, it’s a lot more expensive to sign up for the Monday Qualifiers.
13. 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 vary.
14. How do you make money playing 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. In 2022, the 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.
