Why Almost Half Of The 30 Korn Ferry Tour Graduates Were Unexpectedly Forced To Qualify For The Sony Open

For 2023 Korn Ferry Tour graduates, the Sony Open in Hawaii should have been their first official start as full-time members on the PGA Tour. A group of 30 won cards at the culmination of the previous campaign and were looking forward to playing in the big leagues come January.

But - according to a handful of players who spoke to Monday Q Info - after being told they would all be in the field for the second PGA Tour event of 2024, only the top-16 of last year's Korn Ferry Tour season-long points race will definitely be teeing it up in Waialae.

The rest of the other 14 - who chose to stay on after a two-day mandatory orientation meeting laid on by the PGA Tour last weekend - will have to go through qualifying alongside four of the five PGA Tour Q-School graduates if they want to have a chance of securing one of four spots in the main event. Only Harrison Endycott, who played his rookie season on the PGA Tour last year, opted to stay at home in the US rather than making the significant journey.

Part of the reason for the limited number of spots for Korn Ferry Tour players was down to the change in when the PGA Tour season takes place. With plenty of top talent having not played much golf after the Tour Championship in August, many were keen to get back to it ahead of some significant events in the coming weeks. 

That also does not take into account those with medical exemptions who are keen to wrap up their full-time card as quickly as possible - players such as Will Zalatoris and the returning Gary Woodland.

Another factor in the grads being bumped down involved the alteration in priority ranking for the lower categories allowed into PGA Tour events. As a result of the DP World Tour’s strategic alliance with the PGA Tour, the top-10 players from 2023 who don’t already hold a card in America are now a higher priority compared with the top-30 Korn Ferry Tour players in 2024. Five European Tour players - Alexander Björk, Ryo Hisatsune, Robert MacIntyre, Matthieu Pavon, and Sami Valimaki - have tee times.

Speaking to Monday Q Info, one graduate player reportedly said: “The Korn Ferry Tour is the PGA Tour’s feeder tour, but we are behind the Euro guys and can’t move past them? It doesn’t make sense to me.”

Apparently, according to multiple players spoken to by Monday Q Info, the PGA Tour didn’t foresee this happening, with another Korn Ferry Tour graduate - who won't be in unless he qualifies - having booked travel to Oahu for his wife while one of his sponsors penned in a week-long trip to celebrate after the player was assured he would be in the Sony field at the graduation ceremony.

With all that said and done, a highly-stacked field - which includes former PGA Tour regulars Scott Piercy and Harry Higgs as well as Q-School grad Hayden Springer - remain set to duke it out at Kapolei Golf Course, once the rain stops. 

After the sun stayed out for just long enough to watch Chris Kirk lift The Sentry title at Kapalua, the weather Gods then decided to even it up somewhat by throwing a bucket load of water down onto Hawaii which pushed Monday qualifying back.

As the aforementioned title would suggest, these qualifying events usually take place on a Monday, but horrendous weather conditions have turned Kapolei into a swamp and caused the first attempt at running the tournament to be postponed.

With poor weather appearing likely to hang around, efforts to set up qualifying of any kind on Tuesday or even possibly Wednesday seem increasingly forlorn. The delay in qualifying will also force most hopefuls to change flights and hotels, something they simply do not need when trying to focus on one of the most important weeks of the year.

Even after the weather eases in Hawaii and the PGA Tour heads back to the mainland next week, there are stormy times ahead for those Korn Ferry Tour graduates who dreamed of sunny skies when picking up their cards late last year. This situation, qualifying aside, is likely to be repeated aplenty over much of the first three months of the season, making their dream of sticking around an even tougher one.