With 1 Bogey in 54 Holes, Endycott Leads Final Stage of Q-School at Minus 12

Minnesota

PONTE VEDRA, Fla. -- Harrison Endycott started his rookie season on the PGA TOUR last fall with a tie for 12th at the Fortinet Championship. His third tournament was the Butterfield Bermuda Championship, and he finished solo 10th. At that point, he had already made more than $300,000. But it was downhill from there, and the 27-year-old Aussie ended the 2022-23 season 129th in the FedExCup Standings.

That's why he's at the PGA Tour/Korn Ferry Q-School Final Stage this week. Although he didn't make the top 125 in the FedEx Standings, he would still have at least limited status in 2024, but he wants to improve on that, and it looks as though he will. Endycott shot a 5-under-par 65 on Saturday at Sawgrass Country Club and leads the field  of 163 players -- 15 of whom have WD'd -- by two strokes with a 54-hole total of 198. Blaine Hale, Jr. posted a 67 for the second time in three days, and he's second at 200.

The most experienced player in the field is 39-year-old Spencer Levin, who is tied for third at 202 after a 66. Levin played 227 events on the PGA Tour from 2009 to 2017, but then lost his status and has been trying to get it back ever since. He did win a tournament in April of 2023, the Veritex Bank Championship, on the Korn Ferry Tour, which put him in position to finish in the top 30 on the Korn Ferry Points List. That would have earned him another year on the PGA Tour.  But he missed eight cuts in his last 12 events and ended up 50th on the points list. 

Now he's got another shot at making it back onto the big tour in 2024, by finishing in the top 5 this week. Levin came back from an opening 72, which had him in a 24-way tie for 74th, with rounds of 64 and 66.

The player tied for third with him is Trace Crowe. Like Levin, he won on the Korn Ferry this year, at the NV5 Invitational, but he missed 10 of 19 cuts over the course of the year and wound up 38th on the points list. He got to 202 by shooting 68 on Saturday.

When the day started, Endycott was tied with Hale for first. He inched ahead with a birdie at the par-5 fourth hole at Sawgrass, but Hale reversed their positions by holing his second shot  for an eagle at the 431-yard, par-4 fifth, and still led by one when they made the turn. Endycott went back in front with birdies at the par-4 10th and par-5 11th, and he made two more birdies at the 13th and 14th, both par 4s. Hale also birdied the 14th, and he got back to within one of the lead with a birdie at the 201-yard, par-3 15th, but he surrendered a stroke at the daunting, 525-yard, par-4 18th.

Endycott has made 11 birdies and one eagle so far. The eagle came in Thursday's first round on the 560-yard, par-5 16th hole at the Dye Valley course, the other course besides Sawgrass CC that's being used for the Final Stage. He made his only bogey of the tournament, so far, on the 18th at Sawgrass in Friday's second round. 

Hale, 25, is a kind of mystery guest among the top four players in the standings going into Sunday's final round. The other three have all spent time on the PGA Tour, or have been regulars on the Korn Ferry. Hale has been laboring on the lower-level miini-tours. He won the Oklahoma Open this year, and the $10,750 check he received is one of the biggest he's ever made in his four-year professional career. He's played in one Korn Ferry tournament, in 2022, made the cut and has earned a career total of $5,079. 

It won't necessarily be just five guys who graduate on Sunday. It will be the top five and ties who get their Tour Cards for 2024. As of Saturday night, there was a tie for fifth place at 203 between Raul Pereda and Hayden Springer. Pereda shot 66 on Saturday, but it could have been better if he hadn't mixed two bogeys in with the two birdies he made on the last five holes. As for Springer, his round was a wild ride, beginning with two double bogeys and a birdie in the first four holes. From there, he made six more birdies and one bogey. 

No one from Minnesota, or with Minnesota connections, is within striking distance of the top 5. Frankie Capan III, the former State Amateur champion from North Oaks, might have been, if he could have limited the damage on his bad holes and avoided having what golf statisticians usually refer to as "others" (double bogeys or worse) on his scorecard. He made a double right out of the blocks, on his first hole in the first round (No. 10 at Dye Valley), but battled back to shoot 69, which had him tied for 20th. In Round 2, at Sawgrass, he made 11 pars and one bogey over the first 12 holes, but then doubled the 464-yard 13th hole. He did make a bounce-back birdie at the 14th but wound up with a 72, which dropped him 41 places, into a tie for 61st.

A really good round on Saturday at Sawgrass could have gotten him into contention for a top-5 finish, but a 39 on the back side (he started on the 10th hole) wiped out any chance of that. Two bad holes did him in -- a double at the 14th and a triple at the 18th. Having birdied the 17th, he made four more birdies on the front nine, including three in a row -- at the par-3 sixth, the par-4 seventh and the par-4 eighth. All of which resulted in an even-par 70, but at 211, he's another seven spots lower in the standings now, tied for 68th. With only one round to go, he's eight strokes removed from that tie for fifth at 203. It would take a 62, or maybe a 61 to make the top 5 on Sunday, and no one has shot a score lower than 64 so far. There have, however, been five 64s.

Van Holmgren is, like Capan, a 24-year-old former State Amateur champion, and he also has a  State Open title on his resume. (Capan won an Arizona state high school championship. Holmgren won a Minnesota state high school crown.) Holmgren matched birdies and bogeys Thursday and Friday (three of each both days) while shooting a pair of 70s, but he made zero birdies on Saturday, and shot 73. That cost him 45 places in the standings, and he enters Sunday's final round tied for 91st at 213. 


PGA Tour/Korn Ferry Q-School 

Final Stage

At Dye Valley Course (par 70, 6,850 yards)

& at Sawgrass Country Club (par 70, 7,054)

Ponte Vedra, Fla. 

Third-round results (the top 5 finishers will get PGA Tour status for 2024)

1. Harrison Endycott                       65-68-65--198

2. Blaine Hale, Jr.                            67-66-67--200

T3. Spencer Levin                           72-64-66--202

T3. Trace Crowe                              69-65-68--202

T5. Raul Pereda                              70-67-66--203

T5. Hayden Springer                       66-69-68--203

T7. Chris Petefish                           71-66-67--204

T7. Danny Walker                           67-69-68--204

T7. Kyle Westmoreland                   69-64-71--204

T68. Frankie Capan III                   69-72-70--211

T91. Van Holmgren                       70-70-73--213

T119. Thomas Longella                76-74-66--216

T124. Andre Metzger                     75-72-70--217