The first stage of PGA Tour Q-School continued with five qualifiers that wrapped up on Friday.
Taylor Funk, the 28-year-old son of Fred Funk who made it to final stage last year but has yet to earn his full Korn Ferry Tour card, co-medaled with Notre Dame alum Davis Lamb at the Bermuda Run, North Carolina, qualifier at Bermuda Run Country Club’s East Course. They was joined by four other medalists:
• Christian Salzer, a 26-year-old North Carolina State alum who turned pro in 2021 and has yet to have full status on a major tour (The Preserve at Ironhorse in West Palm Beach, Florida)
• John Greco, a 30-year-old from D-II William Jessup University (Lake Carolina Golf Club, Madison, Mississippi)
• Jake Staiano, the 27-year-old Colorado State product who was suspended for three months last fall for betting on golf (UNM Championship Course, Albuquerque, New Mexico)
• Jacob Harper, a 30-year-old mini-tour legend from Alabama who has earned over $60,000 on the Emerald Coast Tour this year, leading the money list by over $50,000 (Rockwall Golf Club, Rockwall, Texas)
A year after gambling suspension, Jake Staiano rolls through first stage of Q-School
Staiano was suspended three months last fall for violating the PGA Tour’s integrity program and missed Q-School. This week, he won the first-stage site in Albuquerque by seven.
Other notables to advance to second stage on Friday: Brett Stegmaier, a 41-year-old with 223 PGA Tour and KFT starts to his name; APGA legend Willie Mack III, who lost his KFT card last year; former AJGA standout and Texas player Gavin Hall; Cristian DiMarco, son of Chris DiMarco; amateurs Jake Hall and Peter Fountain, who recently graduated college (from Tennessee and North Carolina, respectively); John Augenstein, former All-American at Vanderbilt and the 2019 U.S. Amateur runner-up; George Bryan IV, popular YouTube golfer and brother of PGA Tour winner Wesley Bryan; another notable YouTube golfer, Gonzaga product Sean Walsh; Connor Black, a former blue-chip recruit and contemporary of Scottie Scheffler who went to Texas A&M but lost his game and got into teaching and caddying (another fun fact about Black is when he turned down Texas, the Longhorns used that money to offer Doug Ghim); South African bomber James Hart du Preez; Turk Pettit, the 2021 NCAA individual champion from Clemson who played LIV’s inaugural season; former national amateur champions Yuxin Lin (Asia-Pacific Amateur, twice) and Abel Gallegos (Latin America Amateur).
Notables failing to advance include hotshot high-schooler Blades Brown, who wasn’t expected to turn pro and should be making his verbal college commitment soon; Fred Biondi, the 2023 NCAA individual champion from Florida; 2015 U.S. Junior winner Philip Barbaree; former Aussie prodigy Ryan Ruffels; Mickey DeMorat, the nephew of comedian Daniel Tosh; and several former PGA Tour players, including Andrew Loupe, John Chin and Andrew Yun.
Here are some additional notes along the cut lines:
• Four of the five players who advance by a shot out of the Madison site shot 4-under 66 or better in the final round – Mark Lawrence (65), Jeremy Gandon (65), Evan Brown (66) and Bryce Emory (66). Lawrence played at U.S. Amateur and is perhaps most known for making the semifinals of the 2017 U.S. Amateur at Riviera and winning the 2020 Virginia Open prior to his fifth year, though he’s recorded just one world-ranked start, at the 2022 Live and Work in Maine Open on the KFT, where he missed the cut. Gandon is a Kansas State product by way of France. He’s played events on five different PGA Tour-sanctioned tours since turning pro in 2019. This year, he notched five top-12s during the Latin swing of PGA Tour Americas. Brown, who turned pro in 2022 out of Loyola (Md.), missed 10 of 15 cuts on PGA Tour Americas this year, but he also had three top-10s. Emory is a 33-year-old from Northern Illinois who had limited status on PGA Tour Americas this year. Prior to that, he worked for a few months during the pandemic as a club bender for Club Champion.
• Bryan Bigley birdied each of his final three holes at the Bermuda Run qualifier to make the cut on the number at 3 under. Bigley, 39, hasn’t played a PGA Tour-sanctioned event since losing his KFT card in 2019, his fourth straight season on the tour. Bigley started working in insurance shortly after.
• Jake Sollon missed by a shot in West Palm Beach after bogeying the par-4 17th hole and double-bogeying the par-5 18th hole. Sollon was a standout at Rider before transferring to Oregon as a graduate student. He made five starts for the Ducks, posting a pair of top-20s, and missed match play by a shot at the 2021 U.S. Amateur at Oakmont before turning pro later that year. He’s logged nine starts between Canada and Latin America, all coming last year or prior, though he’s yet to make a cut. Tying Sollon was Jorge Garcia, a former junior standout who played at Florida before transferring to D-II Barry. Garcia played his final nine in 1 under with just one par. His double bogey at the penultimate hole was costly.
• Spencer Oxendine birdied four of his last six holes in Bermuda Run but still missed by a shot. Oxendine, who graduated from N.C. State this summer, was among those players in a playoff at the U.S. Open final qualifier this summer in Durham, North Carolina. Oxendine was eliminated along with a guy by the name of Matt McCarty, who went on to win three times on the KFT and recently on the PGA Tour.
• Jeevan Sihota, a 20-year-old Canadian who played on PGA Tour Americas this year, shot 7-over 78 in the final round in New Mexico and missed by two shots. Sihota skipped college golf, jumping straight to the pros, and as a junior, he was partly responsible for the PGA Tour implementing internal out of bounds left of the 18th hole at TPC Sawgrass before the 2021 Players. Sihota hit drives into the ninth fairway during the AJGA Junior Players the previous year, and with Bryson DeChambeau bashing it around Bay Hill en route to winning the week prior, the Tour made the decision.
The first three first-stage sites – Maricopa, Arizona; Lincoln, Nebraska; and Broken Arrow, Oklahoma – were completed last week with Patrick Flavin, Anthony Paolucci, Charlie Reiter, Spencer Cross, Bo Hoag, Luke Schniederjans, Curtis Thompson, Rayhan Thomas, Travis Smyth, Scott Stevens, Hazen Newman, Michael Sweeney and Grant Hirschman among those advancing out of those qualifiers.
There are still five first-stage tournaments on the calendar:
• Oct. 22-25, Magnolia Grove (Crossing), Semmes, Alabama (field includes Ben Carr, a-Bartley Forrester, Tommy Kuhl, Julian Perico, Thomas Ponder, Chase Seiffert and Brett White)
• Oct. 22-25, Bear Creek GC, Murrieta, California (field includes Devon Bling, Nicolo Galletti, Tain Lee, RJ Manke and Gunn Yang)
• Oct. 22-25, Champions Pointe GC, Henryville, Indiana (field includes Derek Bard, Zack Fischer, Derek Hitchner, Vince India, Dylan Meyer and Tyler Strafaci)
• Oct. 22-25, Abilene CC, Abilene, Texas (field includes Jonathan Brightwell, Nick Cantlay, Peter Kuest, Ethan Marcus and Brian Stark)
• Oct. 29-Nov. 1, CC of Ocala, Ocala, Florida (field includes a-Derek Busby, John Dubois, Luis Gagne, Jimmy Jones, Patrick Newcomb, Andy Pope, Spencer Ralston and Brett Roberts)
