Sunday was the last day of Final Stage at the PGA Tour’s 2024 Q-School, the last chance for a handful of golfers to earn status on the big stage in 2025. The top five and ties ended up being six golfers after the week started with 170 hopefuls.
Lanto Griffin, for one, could breath easy. He shot a final-round 7-under 63 at Dye’s Valley Course at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, to cruise to a three-shot victory.
“With the changes next year to the Tour,” Griffin said earlier in the week of the reduction in exempt Tour cards from 125 down to 100, “it’s going to be the hardest year to keep your card.”
Griffin finished 171st on the FedEx Cup points list, sending him back to Q-School, just a 15-minute ride from home. He became a father for the first time six weeks ago.
“I’m in a different spot in my life, and I still want it just as bad,” he said. “There are so many guys at different stages in their career here. Some are so stoked to be here and others are wishing they weren’t here. I’m still super-hungry. It’s not so much the money I’m chasing as it’s good golf. When you’ve had some success and you have surgery and your game isn’t where it was before, that’s the most frustrating part.”
Joining Griffin on Tour next year will be Hayden Buckley, who finished at 6 under. Takumi Kanaya was solo third at 5 under. Alejandro Tosti, Will Chandler and Matthew Riedel tied for fourth at 4 under.
Riedel had perhaps the most nervous day. Sitting at 1 under through 54 holes, he had three bogeys and a double bogey to go along with three birdies to make the turn with a 2-over 37. He then bogeyed the 10th and the nerves were probably really kicking in. But after five straight pars, he birdied the 16th, giving him the one shot he needed to move back into a tie for fourth and safe for 2025.
Riedel was tied for the lead Saturday night alongside Alistair Docherty, who had a crushing Sunday, opening with a double-bogey 7 and shooting a 3-over 73 to finish at 3 under overall and miss out on a PGA Tour card by a single stroke.
Among those falling short
Nick Watney, Adrien Dumont de Chassart, Matt NeSmith, Austin Smotherman, Tommy Gainey, Pierceson Coody, Justin Suh, Joseph Bramlett, Kyle Westmoreland, Chez Reavie and Hayden Springer were some of the golfers who fell outside of the top five and ties and missed out on a 2025 card.
Some notable withdrawals
Along the way, a few golfers WD’d from the event, including Martin Laird, Garrick Higgo, Sam Bennett, Scott Piercy and Brandon Wu.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: PGA Tour Q-School: These golfers survived to earn 2025 PGA Tour cards
