Each year a fresh new set of rookies earn the chance of a lifetime to play along side the best golfers in the world on the PGA Tour. The path for most involve getting through all three rounds of PGA Tour Q-School. This week is the first full field event, and 27 rookies made their way to Honolulu for the Sony Open.
The first round was washed out on Thursday due to rain and was pushed back until Friday. The second round was played yesterday and 36 holes will be played today to complete the tournament. Because the tournament was delayed one day and they needed the time today to finish, they had to use the “MDF” rule. This basically means some players will make the cut and get paid, but will not be able to finish on Sunday, due to timing issues. These players were sitting at 1-under after the 2nd round.
Out of the 27 rookies that started the tournament on Monday, only five will be playing on Sunday:
Kevin Chappell–70-67
Chris Kirk–68-67
Matt McQuillan–69-68
Nate Smith–65-68
Daniel Summerhays–71-67
Another 10 players finished with the “DNF” designation, meaning they will still get paid but not be able to finish on Sunday.
Joe Affrunti–73-66
Keegan Bradley–70-69
Joseph Bramlett–71-68
Jhonattan Vegas–71-67
Kyle Stanley–71-68
Fabian Gomez–70-69
Jim Herman–69-69
Ben Martin–65-73
Jim Renner–69-70
Alex Rocha–68-70
These remaining 12 players did not make the cut. The biggest name out of all the rookies is also included on this list, Jamie Lovemark, who was the Nationwide Tour Player of the Year in 2010.
William McGirt–74-71
Zack Miller–69-71
Martin Piller–73-70
Sunghoon Kang–72-71
Bio Kim–73-69
Kevin Kisner–77-78
Jamie Lovemark–72-70
Brendan Steele–77-70
Bobby Gates–72-72
Scott Stallings–73-69
Michael Thompson–80-69
Chris Baryla–73-74
Nate Smith, one of the rookies who made the cut, is currently ties for 6th. Two good rounds on Sunday could possibly get him a top-10 finish in his first start on tour. I like to follow the rookies on tour and will be doing quite a few more posts on them this year. Good luck to them all.
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