Tales from Q School: Inside Golf's Fifth Major, by John Feinstein (HC,2007, $3)
I am not a golfer. I have never even looked at a golf club. Therefore the phrase "Q School" meant nothing to me.
It sure means something to golfers. Once apon a time, golfers who attended the PGA's Qualifying School actually studied. Now they just take tests, rounds and rounds of golf. The final six rounds of the final stage are televised, but by then most of the excitement has already happened. All of the players in the final rounds will be able to play professional golf, even if they don't earn one of the 30 winning spots. It's the earlier rounds where people have the most to lose. Lose even by one stroke, and you can't move to the next round. The usual players are the good ones, who just were unlucky the year before, or the older ones, who are not good enough anymore, but don't want to admit it, or youngsters just breaking into the pros.
According to Feinstein, the stories pro golfers tell each other are not the ones about how they did int tournaments, but in how they did in Q. School over the years. These, then, are the stories golfers tell each other.
But only until for one more year. The 2012 Q School Tournament will be the last to give out PGA cards. From 2013, Q School will only give out cards for the Nationwide Tour, except it won't be called the Nationwide Tour any more. Instead players in the PGA will get cards after playing a new set of tournaments. But what about exemptions? Will there still be people who did so well the year before, either by winning top tournaments, or winning a lot of money, or by whatever other reasons the PGA gave out exemptions for.... Oh heck, I haven't even figured out the way the system works now, and now I have to figure it out again?
Not to worry. All this is not on my top "must learn" lists. Still, if someone reading this actually understands it all, I wouldn't stop you from explaining it all to me. In the mean time, you can find this book on th4e new non-fiction table.
