PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Emma Springer held 1-year-old daughter Annie aloft as if she was Simba in “The Lion King,” smiled and said, “Baby, we’re celebrating tonight and you have no idea why!”
The reason is quite simple: husband Hayden Springer is PGA Tour bound for the first time. The 26-year-old, who played on PGA Tour Canada this season, shot 1-under 69 at Dye’s Valley at TPC Sawgrass on Monday. That was good enough to finish at 8-under 272 and T-4 and earn one of five PGA Tour cards for the 2024 season.
After a decade of solely awarding varying levels of Korn Ferry Tour membership, final stage of the 2023 PGA Tour Q-School marks the first time since 2012 there were tour cards on the line. The next 40 finishers and ties are exempt for multiple reshuffles of the 2024 Korn Ferry Tour season, guaranteeing them between eight to 12 starts depending on their finish. The next 20 finishers and ties earned exempt status for the Latin America Swing of the 2024 PGA Tour Americas season in addition to conditional Korn Ferry Tour status. All remaining finishers outside the aforementioned categories earned conditional Korn Ferry Tour and PGA Tour Americas membership for 2024.
Springer entered the week with full Korn Ferry Tour status after topping the 2023 PGA Tour Canada’s season-long Fortinet Cup, but he’s skipping straight to the big leagues along with Mexico’s Raul Pereda, Trace Crowe, Blaine Hale Jr., and medalist Harrison Endycott.
Springer’s story was all the more remarkable because just over a month ago, on Nov. 13, his oldest daughter, Sage, died at age 3. She was prenatally diagnosed with Trisomy 18, a developmental disorder stemming from an extra chromosome.
What a moment for Hayden Springer ❤️
On Nov. 13, his 3-year-old daughter, Sage, passed away after battling Trisomy 18.
Just a month later, Springer is headed to the PGA TOUR. https://t.co/QcdmHajA33 pic.twitter.com/lNObh2M2lk
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) December 18, 2023
Springer said he thought of Sage several times during the final round.
“It’s happy thoughts,” he said. “It’s kind of one of those things that I think about her, and I just think about her smile. Like that’s the thing that I can just close my eyes and think about her smiling, and it’s kind of a grounding, kind of gets you back to neutral.”
Springer’s wife was greenside at 18 with Annie in her stroller but when she started crying, Emma wheeled her away. Hayden’s dad took over so Emma, who played on the women’s team at Texas Tech, could witness him seal the deal with a 2-putt par at 18. Three front-nine birdies lifted Springer into solid position to finish in the top 5. But he made bogeys at Nos. 11 and 12 to move into shakier ground. A birdie at the par-3 14th gave him a cushio again.
“Bouncing back and making birdie there definitely kind of got me back into it, got me back on the right track,” he said.
But he drove into the water at 17 and made bogey, which meant he needed to avoid the water off the tee at 18. As his father put it, “Can you make it any harder?”
“I’ve worked essentially my whole life to get into this position, and you dream about it,” said Springer, who began playing U.S. Kids events at age 8. “It’s like you don’t know exactly when that day will come, but today is the day.”
Here’s the story of the four other newly minted PGA Tour members.
Harrison Endycott hits his tee shot on the first hole during the first round of the Shriners Children’s Open at TPC Summerlin in Las Vegas. (Photo: Ray Acevedo-USA TODAY Sports)
The 27-year-old Australian grabbed medaliast honors with a final-round 3-under 67 at Dye’s Valley to shoot an impressive 15-under 265 total.
“A win is a win,” he said. “It’s great to go do the job over four days.”
Endycott struggled in his rookie season on the PGA Tour but entered this week with conditional status and nothing to lose. After the RSM Classic, he said he studied his stats and figured out where there was room for improvement in his game and targeted those areas.
“We just picked up what we needed to get better, did some really good work over the last few weeks, and it’s nice to come out and get a win,” he said.
Endycott, who appeared in the PGA Tour show “The Turn,” revealed that he stopped drinking alcohol following the 2023 Wyndham Championship.
“I got sick of feeling like crap all the time,” he said.
He’s feeling great about upgrading his status for next season to fully exempt.
Trace Crowe of the United States looks on while playing the 18th hole during the second round of the 2023 Korn Ferry Tour Championship at Victoria National Golf Club in Newburgh, Indiana. (Photo: Mike Mulholland/Getty Images)
Trace Crowe was asked what his 12, 13-year-old self would think about his earning his PGA Tour card for the time?
“You’re going to make me cry right now,” he said. “We did it, dude. This is what I’ve been dreaming of doing my whole life.”
Crowe finished second at Q-School after shooting 3-under 67 on Monday at Dye’s Valley for a 72-hole total of 11-under 269. The former Auburn Tiger, who shot four rounds in the 60s, said he was relaxed despite the pressure of having to wait an extra day due to a weather delay to pursue that lifelong dream.
“More than I thought I would have been,” he said.
That extra day off gave him more time for his ailing right foot to heal.
“Every time I put pressure on it walking, it felt like it was just like a knife digging into the side of it,” he said. “So if anything it was probably the best thing for me yesterday just to hang out and rest it.”
Crowe was a Monday qualifier into two PGA Tour events this season. Last year, he got into the KFT’s Evansville event when Chris Baker withdrew with an injury and converted that into future starts, eventually winning an event in Chicago. It’s a rapid rise to the big leagues for a 27-year-old who had a chance to earn his Tour card at Korn Ferry Tour Finals this fall but ballooned to 76-74 on the weekend and finish outside the top 30. Crowe said he grew up with a chip on his shoulder as he never played any AJGA events or was touted as a top player.
“Just not having the resources like a lot of these people have out here and just growing up where I grew up, small town,” he said. “Yeah, just a lot of life – yeah, it’s been hard.”
But not too hard to overcome. Crowe said he couldn’t wait for the reality of getting his Tour card to kick in.
“I can’t wait for about an hour from now, and honestly, that first beer is going to be incredible,” he said.
Blaine Hale Jr. at the 2023 Veritex Bank Championship at Texas Rangers Golf Club in Arlington, Texas. (Photo: Alex Bierens de Haan/Getty Images)
At the start of the week, Hale Jr. predicted that some player would go from having no status heading into Q-School to the PGA Tour. He turned out to be right as he posted a 1-over-par 71 at Dye’s Valley on Monday to finish third at 9-under 271.
“I didn’t think it would be me. Let me say that. But pretty exciting to be able to get it done this week,” Hale said. “Finishing third is more than a cherry on top.”
It’s been a bumpy road to the PGA Tour for the former Oklahoma Sooners star, who was a member of the 2017 national championship team. One year, he missed advancing at first stage of Q-School by one shot and then had to drive nine hours home from Lincoln, Nebraska.
PGA TOUR member has a nice ring to it.
Since turning pro in 2019, Blaine Hale, Jr. has made his living playing mini tour events and Monday qualifiers.
Life is about to change for the 25-year-old. pic.twitter.com/PwHRzw1wtB
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) December 18, 2023
“Being a professional golfer is not necessarily glamorous when you’re not playing on the PGA Tour or Korn Ferry Tour. It’s driving to the middle of nowhere Kansas for a Monday qualifier or driving to small-town Oklahoma to play a mini-tour event and you pack your clubs in the back and you’ve got your shoes and your extra clubs and it’s just you and the open road for a lot of that. That’s the stuff that people don’t see that really is the hard part of professional golf,” he said. “I even told my wife last week when I made it through second stage, to me it was almost hard to tell people that I was a professional golfer because they’re like, what Tour are you on, and I’m like, well, I play mini-tour, I play glorified money games, I play Monday qualifiers. Actually getting to say I’m a PGA Tour golfer might hold a little bit more merit now.”
Indeed, it will.
“It doesn’t feel right,” he said of calling himself a Tour member, “but we’ll figure it out hopefully in the next couple days.”
Raul Pereda meets with the media following his third-round 66 at the Sawgrass Country Club in the 2023 PGA Tour Q-School presented by Korn Ferry. (Photo: USA TODAY)
Raul Pereda believes it was destiny.
The 27-year-old Mexican native chipped in twice on the back nine to shoot 1-under 69 at Dye’s Valley on Monday and finish T-4 with Hayden Springer.
Pereda earned a spot in the final stage thanks to Alex Chiarella making bogey on the last hole at a second-stage site in California.
“I just felt like everything was a win for me,” Pereda said. “I think the fact that it happened here was meant to be. It was for a reason. It was set for me at the table, and I just took advantage of it the best way possible.”
Pereda moved to Jacksonville, Florida, in 2014 to attend Jacksonville University. He figured he’s played at least 50-60 rounds at Dye’s Valley and benefited from more course knowledge than anyone else in the field.
“I really know the course like the palm of my hand,” he said. “It really helped me put myself in position all day today. The putts didn’t drop like the past couple days, but the chips did.”
Pereda also benefited from Sunday’s play being washed out as he spent half the day at the emergency room with his father, who suffered from kidney stones.
“That really helped me not think about the round, not get ahead of myself again. Looking at my dad just hurt, it was just, I did it for them. He’s good. He’s got some meds. He’s walking. He couldn’t go out there and watch,” Pereda said. “My brother was here, my mom was here, and this is for them, and this is for my entire country supporting me.”
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