Earning a PGA Tour card -- yes, there is actually a card -- is golf's version of getting called up to the big leagues in baseball.
One perk for golfers is that a Tour card guarantees a player at least one year of participation.
A call-up from the minors to the majors in baseball sometimes doesn't last long enough to drink two cups of coffee.
On Sunday, a squadron of golfers with connections to the state of Arkansas got their bronze-plated PGA passes, signifying their graduation from AAA-level Web.com Tour to the big time, where prize money is nearly 10 times what it is on the satellite tour.
Andrew Landry (Arkansas Razorbacks), Austin Cook (Little Rock, Razorbacks) and Ethan Tracy (Razorbacks) qualified the old-fashioned way, by finishing in the top 25 of the Web.com Tour standings after 26 weeks of play.
A fourth Arkansas-connected player -- Matt Atkins (one season at Henderson State) -- is also joining the PGA after finishing 19th in the standings.
Landry (Arkansas, 2009) is getting his second PGA Tour opportunity after finishing No. 4 on the money list with $292,939 in earnings, thanks to six top-10 finishes, including a victory worth $108,000 in the The Bahamas Great Abaco Classic in January.
Winning early put Landry near the top, and he stayed there throughout.
"That's a huge momentum changer there," he said. "Getting it early -- that's two years in a row that I've won early, and now I'm trying to get a win early on the big Tour, especially with the fall series coming up."
Landry played on the PGA Tour in 2016 but lost his card after finishing 171st on the money list ($373,980) despite making 9 of 18 cuts. His tie for 15th at the U.S. Open brought him unexpected TV time.
"I can do it," he said. "I can play out there and I can compete out there. It just takes a lot of hard work and dedication, and you have to do a lot of stuff right."
The top 125 finishers on the PGA Tour money list retain their cards. Those who finish between 125-150 receive conditional status.
Cook, a 2013 Arkansas graduate, earned his PGA card by finishing 15th on the money list with $206,515.
"The first time earning your card is once in a lifetime, so I'm going to relish in that," said Cook, who earned $640,115 while making 7 of 10 cuts as a nonmember in 2014 and 2015. "I'm ready to get on Tour, where consistent play really benefits."
Tracy (Arkansas, 2013) is heading to the PGA Tour primarily because he won the Club Colombia Championship in February. He earned $126,00 for that victory, and he held on to the No. 24 spot despite making only 9 of 22 cuts for $161,211.
Taylor Moore can give the Razorbacks four PGA Tour card-winners. He didn't automatically qualify for his card after finishing 38th on the money list, but he will get a second chance to earn his card during the four-week Web.com finals, where another 25 cards will be handed out.
What makes Moore's task more difficult is he will go against players who finished between 26th and 75th on the Web.com Tour as well as all of those who lost their cards on the big tour, including veterans such as Tag Ridings (Razorbacks) and Ken Duke (Henderson State, Arkadelphia).
Sports on 08/29/2017