Those were the words of James Nicholas as he climbed into his car after his PGA Tour Q-School run came to a frustrating end on the second leg in Valdosta, Georgia.
Nicholas, 28, had broken into the top 15 and tied the score, the cutoff to advance to next week’s final stage, before bad weather halted Friday’s final round shortly after noon ET with Nicholas through 13 holes at Kinderlou Forest Golf Club. Just over two hours later, the entire round was scrapped, with the scores returning to 54 holes in accordance with Q-School bylaws.
Nicholas and a few other players who had climbed inside the cut line when the horn sounded went home instead, their clutch performance negated. Nicholas ultimately missed with one shot.
The anticlimactic ending marked one of two locations in the second stage that completed just three rounds. The final round in Dothan, Alabama, was not even attempted after storms delayed Thursday’s third round, which concluded Friday. The three other locations – Palm Coast, Florida; Savannah, Georgia; and Tucson, Arizona – each completed the originally planned 72 holes.
The statutes of the PGA Tour Q-School state: Any round of an “official” first or second qualifying stage not completed by the end of the last scheduled competitive day will be canceled and the results of the last completed round will stand, unless at least half the field has completed the round. In that case, play must be temporarily suspended and completed as circumstances permit. No completion may take longer than one additional day. Under no circumstances would play resume until at least half the field has been fully played so that play can be extended to an additional day.
In Valdosta, no groups had finished yet, as the first groups out were on their penultimate hole and the last group was on the eighth hole. The final rule of the statutes, which is the same for all Korn Ferry Tour events (with the exception of the KFT Championship), prohibits resuming play in the final round if that round cannot be completed that day. So when the officials determined the round couldn’t resume until 2:45 PM ET at the earliest, there was no way they could start the round before sunset at 5:31 PM.
“This is a very difficult situation for the rules officials,” Nicholas said in a video he shared on his Instagram page. “They don’t make the rules. It’s in the statutes that this is the way things are done. Personally, I think we need to change them.”
Nicholas was 4 under on Friday with just one par over his 13 holes, although the online leaderboard when play was stopped only showed his score over nine holes as there was no live scoring per hole. He still faced a shot inside the cut line, at 6 under, along with five other players, including Gunnar Broin, who went out at 4 under and was still within the count with three holes to play. Broin’s playing competitor, Jonathan Brightwell, was reportedly 7 under in his round, 5 under through five holes of his back nine, and safe with a few shots before being called off the course.
The return was probably especially heartbreaking for Broin and Brightwell. Broin finished 133rd in PGA Tour Americas points this season and was looking to at least secure conditional status on the Korn Ferry Tour by advancing to the final stage. Brightwell has not had status on a PGA Tour-sanctioned tour on the KFT since 2022.
Nicholas, on the other hand, has a nice safety net. He already retained his full KFT card by clinching the KFT Championship this fall, and he only entered the second phase for the chance to earn one of the five PGA Tour cards up for grabs in the final phase, which begins Thursday in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida.
“I’ve got a full Korn Ferry Tour card for next year, so I’m not that upset,” Nicholas said, “but if I didn’t – and there’s a lot of players who played great today, who put themselves within the number and now don’t have any chance. … You work all year, your whole career, to get through Q-School, and then it’s just a phone call where a meteorologist says we can’t go out to play, or a rules official says we can’t go out to play.” play.
“It sucks, it’s not easy, it’s not fun, but those are the rules.”
North Carolina alum Ryan Burnett medaled in Valdosta at 14 under, two shots ahead of Tennessee product Hunter Wolcott. Former PGA Tour pros Doc Redman, Roger Sloan and Joey Garber were among those who also advanced. Other notables to emerge from the other four locations include Ryo Ishikawa, Fred Biondi, Norman Xiong, Ted Potter Jr., Jim Herman, Brandon Wu, Turk Pettit, Nick Gabrelcik, Luke Guthrie and Spencer Levin.
Among those missing from the five locations were Blades Brown, Jimmy Walker, Nick Watney, Scott Piercy, Andrew Landry, Austin Cook, Sung Kang, Anthony Paolucci, Cole Hammer and Dylan Meyer. Meyer, a former Illinois standout, was 9 under through 36 holes in Dothan, Alabama, before shooting 10-over 82 in his third and final round. He dropped from third to T-44, missing the cut by seven shots at 1 over.
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