Q-school final stage: Round 6 notebook

1,389 players sent in applications to participate in the 2010 PGA TOUR Qualifying Tournament. Six pre-qualifiers, along with 13 first- and six second-stage regionals were held to reduce the field. A total of 166 players advanced to the final qualifying stage, which will consist of six rounds with no cut.

• The top 25 players and ties would receive PGA TOUR cards for 2011. The next nearest-number-to-50 earned fully exempt Nationwide Tour cards for the first 10 events on the schedule and the remainder of the field received conditional Nationwide Tour status. After 10 Nationwide Tour events next year, the fully exempt members will be subjected to the re-order/conditional category.

• Nine players qualified by making it through all three stages -- Todd Bailey, Jimmy Brandt, Dustin Garza, Seath Lauer, Richard Lee, David Lingmerth, Eric Onesi, Blake Parks and Brett Waldman.

• A total of 496 players teed off in the six pre-qualifiers and competed for 248 spots (and ties).

• A total of 927 players teed off in the 13 first-stage qualifiers and competed for 277 spots (and ties).

• A total of 448 players teed off in the six second-stage qualifiers and competed for 116 spots (and ties).

• A total of 45 players were exempt into the final stage of the tournament.

PURSE BREAKDOWN:
1st place $50,000
2nd $40,000
3rd $35,000
4th $30,000
5th $27,500
6-25th $25,000 each
Next nearest-number-to-50 all receive $5,000 each

SIXTH-ROUND NOTES:

• A total of 29 PGA TOUR cards were handed out this week. The cut-off came at 9-under par 420 for the group. There were 26 players who were at 10-under par but two players in that group (Michael Putnam and Justin Hicks) had already earned their cards by virtue of finishing among the 25 leading money winners on the 2010 Nationwide Tour and did not count towards the total of 25. Therefore, the cut-off fell to 9-under par and allowed three additional players to collect a card next year (Scott Gordon, Billy Horschel, Will Strickler).

• Weather: Sunny skies. Highs in the mid 50s, with winds out of the NW at 10-20 mph.

• Veteran Billy Mayfair, a five-time TOUR winner, birdied his next-to-last hole to break a three-way tie at the top of the leaderboard and claim medalist honors this week. Mayfair shot a 2-under 70 in the final round at Crooked Cat and finished at 18-under par 411, one shot better than William McGirt (68/CC) and Ben Martin (71/CC). Mayfair, 44, was making only his second career trip to q-school and his first since successfully navigating the tournament in his first attempt back in 1988, when he finished T21. He finished No. 142 on the 2010 PGA TOUR money list, with a T3 at the Turning Stone Resort Championship his best finish.

• William McGirt ran off a string of five consecutive birdies starting at No. 10 today to surge up the leaderboard and assure himself a spot on TOUR next year. McGirt moved from 13-under to 18-under with the run and eventually finished with a 4-under 68, putting him at 17-under par and tied for second place.

• McGirt, 31, will be a rookie on the PGA TOUR next year. McGirt just completed his rookie season on the Nationwide Tour by making 17 cuts in 24 starts. He had eight top-25 finishes, including a season-best T3 in his first start, the inaugural Pacific Rubiales Bogota Open. McGirt finished No. 34 on the 2010 money list, which exempted him into this week's final stage. He has made a total of two career starts on the PGA TOUR and missed the cut in both, including this year's Shell Houston Open.

• Ben Martin (70/CC) tied for second, one shot back of Billy Mayfair. Martin was tied for second after the first and second rounds, was the outright leader after the third and fourth rounds and shared the fifth-round lead with Billy Mayfair.

• Second-year pro Cameron Tringale rode an early hot streak to a PGA TOUR card. Tringale started his round at Crooked Cat eagle-birdie-birdie-birdie and was quickly at 17-under par. He would add one more birdie and a double-bogey and shot a 4-under 68 to reach 16-under and solo fourth.

• Scott Stallings birdied his final two holes today to earn his first PGA TOUR card. Stallings shot a 1-under 71 at Crooked Cat and wound up 12-under par 417. One year ago Stallings, 25, missed his TOUR card by a single stroke after a bogey on his 15th hole and three consecutive pars to close his round.

• Will Strickler bogeyed the final hole Monday for a 4-over 76 but managed to hold onto his TOUR card. Playing in the next-to-last group, Strickler's bogey dropped him back to 9-under for the week, but still good enough to finish T27 and earn his card. Had Strickler made par, exactly 25 players would have gotten their cards but the bogey allowed Scott Gordon and Billy Horschel at 9-under par to sneak into the group.

• Scott Gordon (71/CC) was a beneficiary of Will Strickler's late bogey. Gordon had three-putted the final hole from 50 feet, missing a 3-footer for par, and dropped to 9-under par. Gordon was on the outside looking in and waited more than an hour and a half before Strickler's hiccup put him back inside the cut off number.

• Three players ran off streaks of five consecutive birdies today and all of them wound up earning TOUR cards for next year: William McGirt (Nos. 10-14/CC), Joseph Bramlett (Nos. 8-12/CC) and Chris Baryla (Nos. 1-5/CC).

• Billy Mayfair became the seventh consecutive player to carry the lead/co-lead into the final round of q-school and go on to win. In the past ten years, only one player (Danny Ellis) who held the lead after five rounds failed to take medalist honors.

• Here is a list of the 29 players who collected PGA TOUR cards this week. The list contains the total career starts for each of the players with the 2011 rookies (17 total) listed in bold,:

• Four players who earned their PGA TOUR card for 2011 by graduating (top 25) from the Nationwide Tour were seeking to improve their position this week at the Final Stage of q-school: Jim Herman (No. 19), Joe Affrunti (No. 22), Michael Putnam (No. 24) and Justin Hicks (No. 25). These players did not count toward the top 25 and ties who earned their TOUR card through Q-School, nor did they count against the next number nearest 50 to determine fully-exempt Nationwide Tour membership. Putnam improved his overall position for next year by finishing at 14-under par and T6. Hicks will be in approximately the same place with a T22 effort this week. Affrunti wound up T30 and Herman was T64.

• Chris Baryla finished at 12-under par this week but had decidedly different results on the two courses. Baryla shot scores of 72-73-74 in Rounds 1, 3 and 5 on the Panther Lake course (par 71/6-over par). He posted rounds of 61-71-66 in Rounds 2, 4 and 6 on the Crooked Cat course (par 72/18-under par)

• Bogey-free rounds:
R1: Billy Mayfair (69/PL), Tommy Biershenk (71/CC)
R2: Chris Baryla (61/CC), Jarrod Lyle (68/PL), Richard Lee (68/PL), Gavin Coles (72/CC/18 pars)
R3: Mathew Goggin (65/CC), Nate Smith (66/PL), Joe Affrunti (66/PL), Jim Herman (68/PL), James Nitties (69/CC), James Driscoll (69/PL), David Lutterus (69/CC), William McGirt (68/PL)
R4: James Driscoll (66/CC), Zack Miller (68/CC), Nate Smith (67/CC), Kent Jones (67/CC), Justin Hicks (65/CC), Gavin Coles (67/CC), Michael Putnam (66/CC), Richard S. Johnson (70/CC), Ron Whitaker (65/PL)
R5: Travis Hampshire (65/CC), James Hahn (67/CC), Erik Compton (68/CC), Richard S. Johnson (68/PL), Carlos Franco (68/PL), Greg Owen (68/CC), Mike Hendry (68/CC), Marc Turnesa (69/CC), Darren Angel (69/CC)
R6: Paul Stankowski (69/CC), James Hahn (68/CC)

• Scores needed to secure PGA TOUR status at Orange County National in previous years:

• Scoring Averages:

• WD's this week: Keegan Bradley, David Hearn, Alistair Presnell, Peter Tomasulo, George McNeill, John Riegger, Darron Stiles, Joe Ogilvie, George McNeill, Pablo Martin, Scott Piercy, Craig Bowden

• DQ's this week: Jonathan Kaye

• PLAYER QUOTES
Billy Mayfair (1st)

"I figure if I have to come back in 21 years I'll be 65, so I'm not coming back in 21 years. It was a great week. You don't want to be here, that is for sure, but I played really good. It gives me a lot of confidence to start the year."

"A win is a win, I don't care if you win this or if you win your Match Play back at home ... a W is a W and I'll take the feather in my cap. But watching these young kids, watching Ben (Martin) and Bio (Kim) play today under the pressure, I mean they had a lot more pressure riding on this than I did. Basically I was playing all week to be able to play through April. After April, I was going to be able to play pretty much everywhere I wanted to anyway with my status. It was good to win, but man, there are some good young players and fearless."

"I've had fun since we putted out on No. 18. It has been a long week. It has been a grind. We've had wind, we've had rain, we've had a little bit of everything this week. The golf course has been great. It has been a great place for Q-School."

"With the weather conditions, and all that, I think a lot of these kids haven't seen some of that. With us out on TOUR, we see that once or twice every month. We have a lot of adversity. Also, having people close to you, having walking scorers, that is stuff that I'm used to and some of these guys haven't seen that. So it is the little things that make a big difference."

"The tournament sponsors were absolutely wonderful last year, giving me a lot of spots. The good thing is, with me playing good this week, I don't have to ask them for those anymore. That is probably the most satisfying thing."

Jarrod Lyle (5th)

"This has been a really good week. I had a tough year. I didn't play the second half of the year any good at all. I went back home to do some work with Dad and in five minutes, he had me sorted all out. I played the Masters down there and finished fifth and got some confidence. It made the decision to go home even sweeter because ... I went down there and spent some time with my family and friends and got my game in shape and got my TOUR card too. So it couldn't have been better."

"It is a good feeling. I'm sure the other 25 or 26 other guys have that same feeling. I'm just happy. There is nothing better than going home and celebrating the achievement."

Chris Baryla (T11)

"I had hip surgery in March and have a major medical for next year but this status is for a full year instead of an extension. This week will turn your mind into mush. I can't thank Sean Foley enough. I mean that in the sense, even if he had never seen me swing a golf club, what he has done for me off the golf course and as a friend means so much. In addition, he is a great golfing mind. I played some good rounds this week so this gives me a lot of confidence and sends me off nicely."

Joseph Bramlett (T16)

"I don't know how I handled the pressure of Q-School. I have no idea what I have just done. I think the cold and the wind helped, because you didn't have a chance to think of anything else.

"I've lived here for a few years. Orlando is my home. This country is my home. I think playing around the world and in Asia actually helped me out this week. There was just about every kind of test out there during the six days ... the wind, the cold, the pin positions ... I drew a little bit of experience from my experience which came in handy."

James Driscoll (T16)

"After the first four days, I thought it was going along really well and smoothly. But then after yesterday, the wind picked up and my game left me a little bit. Nothing is easy in this game, ever. Playing well for six straight days is no easy task. These last two days were total survival. The weather was more difficult than the first four days."

"This is a great feeling. I tried to not get too down on myself this year, even though my results weren't very good. I was somewhat on the right track, so I kept a good attitude. I played pretty well at second stage and then got off to a great start this week and then hung on. I'm looking forward to next year."

Sunghoon Kang (T16)

"I just couldn't sleep until yesterday. I kept waking up one hour earlier than I was supposed to. Now I can sleep now."

"Since I started golf, it has been my dream to be on the PGA TOUR and to be like Tiger Woods, the number one golfer in the world. I just feel fantastic right now."

Andres Gonzales (T22)

"I'm so happy right now. I'm just speechless. I started thinking of this moment probably during my third year in college. I started really dreaming about it and thinking about it when I was a junior."

Re: Making it to the PGA TOUR: "I've always wanted to think that I could do it, but I don't think I've ever really believed it to the fullest. When you want something so bad, but you're not sure you can get it, it puts you in that place where you have just a little bit of self doubt of if you can do it. It's not where I finish now. I've hit enough good shots out there and I handled the pressure better than I ever have. But if I get a card today, it is just going to be ... I don't know what to think, I have no idea."

Jim Renner (T22)

"Birdie at No. 17 was something I had to do, because birdies on No. 18 aren't easy to come by. I knew that one was pretty important. I hit it up there to a good range so I could tap it in."

"I felt a lot of pressure out there, but at the same time, coming from the mini-Tours, I knew I had a place to play ... whether it be Nationwide or PGA (TOUR). I'd obviously rather it be PGA, but at the same time I knew my career was moving forward. All in all, it was good."

Justin Hicks (T22)

Re: Improving his position from finishing in Nationwide Tour Top 25 - "We accomplished our goal. Coming in here we knew there was a lot of room for improvement from finishing inside the top 25 from the Nationwide Tour money list. We were hoping to get a little further up the list, but we'll take what we can get. We accomplished our goal."

"The first few holes were very difficult. My toes and my hands ... it took me back to my college days of playing golf at the University of Michigan. But we stayed steady and dealt with the wind. We hit a lot of club because the ball was going very far."

Richard S. Johnson (T22)

"I had a great start today, but then made a couple of bogeys on Nos. 5 & 10. It was just hard to get it close on the back nine with the wind blowing. I even had a couple of pitch shots against the wind and it was hard to get it close."

"I said if I make it through Q-School, I would look back at this as one of my better years, even though I lost my PGA TOUR card. To win in my home country and in front of all of my family and friends, it doesn't get more special than that. That doesn't happen to a person very often."

Brett Waldman (T64)

Re: Camilo Villegas: "We had a nice little conversation after he finished the Chevron. He said it has always been a dream or yours to play on the PGA TOUR. He said he was pulling for me and if I decide to play he would respect that. He also said if I did qualify, then I should play. So obviously I've got some decisions to make with my family."

"This week was fun. It was grueling. I respect all of these guys for going through this week. It is a long week and a grind."