For years, it was not unusual for players on the lower end of the priority list to bounce between the PGA Tour and
To get an idea of how much has changed, consider Harrison Endycott of
Endycott narrowly lost his PGA Tour card only to gamely earn it back by winning Q-school, which offered only five cards. He now has a schedule that has him playing four straight weeks on two tours, separated by a mere 8,000 miles.
Two weeks in
Endycott is among those taking advantage of the alliance with the European tour that offers up to five spots for players who finished between Nos. 126 and 200 in the FedEx Cup.
Only 19 of the 30 Korn Ferry Tour graduates got into the Sony Open — usually all of them do. Endycott got into The American Express last week, but he wasn’t confirmed for the 156-man field at the Farmers Insurance Open until the weekend.
“It’s a very new system the tour has never faced before. It’s all up in the air,” Endycott said.
The new system is eight signature events with limited fields primarily for the top 50 from the FedEx Cup. The uncertainty is where else they might play and how much room that leaves for everyone else.
Endycott believes, based on several conversations with players and tour officials, that the top 50 is so important that those players are competing more often on the
“I think it will bleed out as the season goes on,” Endycott said. “Once we get the early stretch out of the way, I think we’ll get to see more of the members in the field list go deeper. I’m right on that line, so it will be a mixed year of PGA Tour and DP World Tour.”
Travel is nothing new for Endycott, an engaging 27-year-old from
“I had quite the frequent flyer account,” he said.
Meanwhile, Endycott is not one to panic. He will have the Mexico Open and the start of the Florida swing. There are opposite-field events. And he thinks as the FedEx Cup standings develop, more room in the fields will become available for
“For me having a year on and seeing how it all pans out, the panic is a lot less,” said Endycott, a PGA Tour rookie in 2023. “I’m not as concerned as I would have been last year.”
RANKIN AWARD
She is the 33rd recipient and the first woman to receive the award from the PGA of America.
Rankin, the first woman to surpass
“Following a remarkable playing career, Judy has delivered insightful commentary as a broadcaster for nearly four decades,” said PGA President
Rankin, who started with
“I do take a certain satisfaction that so many women are accepted in golf and men’s golf today and how good they are,” Rankin said.
Rankin retired from full-time work in 2022, though she returned for special occasions like the Solheim Cup.
“Quite honestly I am a little overwhelmed that it’s for journalism,” said Rankin. “It really makes me feel good as though I did something slightly more meaningful than just playing a game. I am really honored that they think there was some journalistic value to what I’ve done all these years.”
She will be honored
ROSE AND THE PUTTER
Among the struggles
Turns out that’s not a figure of speech.
“I physically lost my putter,” Zhang said last week at the Tournament of Champions.
She was on a train in
“I could not putt because the specs were wrong, putter was an inch shorter, wrong shaft, every weight was wrong,” Zhang said. “So I just did not know where the putter was going to go.”
Now she’s had some time to get a new putter in the bag and it’s slowly started to come around.
As for the whereabouts of her original putter, Zhang has no idea.
“If it’s not on eBay, it’s probably in someone else’s hands,” she said.
FAMILY MATTERS
But not for long. His schedule has him playing nine of the first 11 weeks to get in as much golf as he can. His wife is expecting their first child in March, with the due date the week of the Valspar Championship (a week after The Players).
“She took a test at The Open and the first thing she looked at was what week,” Poston said. “She knew it would be around the week of Augusta.”
The Masters is three weeks after the due date.
DIVOTS
The JM Eagle LA Championship might have one perk to attract a strong LPGA event on
STAT OF THE WEEK
FINAL WORD
"I’ve never played with him before. I probably would have preferred our first time in a practice round.” —
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