This being graduation season, the PGA Tour has found its way into the diploma business these days.
While someone else may choose to give Texas Tech’s Ludvig Åberg a copy of Dr. Seuss’ “Oh, The Places You’ll Go!” as the ubiquitous graduation gift, the PGA Tour will give Åberg something even better – full tour membership – if he finishes atop the PGA Tour University ranking, as he is likely to do.
No mini-tours for him. No Monday qualifiers. No starting on the Korn Ferry Tour and working his way up.
Four years ago, Collin Morikawa, Matthew Wolff and Viktor Hovland left college in the spring and had PGA Tour victories on their résumés in their first year on tour, evidence of the elevated quality of college golf.
Now, PGA Tour U is offering a direct path for the best players whose college success will alleviate much of the uncertainty of entering the job market in a business that can be both heartless and heartwarming.
Once the NCAA regionals and national championship tournaments are concluded in 2½ weeks and the various player-of-the-year awards are handed out, the top golfer in the PGA Tour U rankings – Åberg has a commanding lead over Florida’s Fred Biondi and Texas A&M’s Sam Bennett – will receive his golden ticket and be free to start his tour career at the RBC Canadian Open.
The PGA Tour privileges are for the remainder of this season and all of the 2024 season, an enhancement granted this year which speaks to the value and the opportunity of this three-year-old program.
“It’s fantastic for the players and for college golf,” said Andrew DiBitetto, men’s golf coach at the University of North Carolina, whose senior Austin Greaser ranks fifth in the PGA Tour U rankings.
“Guys that come out of this, they aren’t flashes in the pan. ... Ludvig Åberg has earned that. It can’t be a fluke for someone to get out there.”
ANDREW DiBITETTO, UNC MEN'S GOLF COACH
The next four players on the PGA Tour U list will receive full Korn Ferry Tour privileges for the remainder of this year, giving themselves a shot at earning their PGA Tour cards there, as well as the ability to receive an unlimited number of sponsor exemptions into PGA Tour events, a huge perk.
The next 15 players – all of whom must complete their junior and senior years in college – also receive various opportunities to kick-start their professional careers.
If Åberg holds on to the top spot, as he’s expected to do given his large lead, he likely will make an immediate impact. The native of Sweden recently won his second consecutive Big 12 Conference individual title, sits atop the World Amateur Golf Ranking, and made cuts in the Hero Dubai Desert Classic on the DP World Tour as well as the Arnold Palmer Invitational and Valspar Championship on the PGA Tour.
“Guys that come out of this, they aren’t flashes in the pan,” DiBitetto said. “This is determined over a two-year period. Ludvig Åberg has earned that. It can’t be a fluke for someone to get out there.”
John Pak of Florida State and Pierceson Coody from Texas won the first two years of PGA Tour U, and the program has continued to evolve.
It was conceptualized by Brendan von Doehren, a former college player who later coached the Pepperdine men’s golf team. Now the executive director of PGA Tour U for the PGA Tour, von Doehren hatched the idea in 2017-18, and it started in 2020.
“Since the inception of the PGA Tour, we’ve had an informal relationship with college golf,” von Doehren said. “This has formalized and defined the pathway like never before. It’s a bridge we’ve crossed (that) we hope is very long-standing. Once you cross the bridge, you never go back. It’s a huge reward. It really signifies the talent, depth of talent, the readiness of elite college players.
“If those players weren’t ready, this wouldn’t work. It would fall on its face.”
PGA Tour U existed before LIV Golf arrived, but the heightened value for the program’s top performers is another line of defense against the new league, which signed college star Eugenio López-Chacarra to a big-money deal last year.
“It was a founding principle to stay in school for four years.”
BRENDAN von DOEHREN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, PGA TOUR U
While there is an accelerated version of PGA Tour U for underclassmen such as Vanderbilt sophomore Gordon Sargent, the threshold to earn tour privileges is more challenging and, consequently, harder to achieve.
There will be outliers such as Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas, both of whom had quick success after leaving college early, but one of the goals of PGA Tour U is to keep players in school for four years. The rankings are based on a player’s junior and senior seasons.
“It was a founding principle to stay in school for four years. We looked at the Morikawas, Rahms, Schefflers and we traced back. How did they get there? Where did they go?” von Doehren said.
“Overwhelmingly those top players played for four years in school.”
Some players will take different paths. Akshay Bhatia skipped high school and college golf and, at age 21, recently earned special temporary membership on the PGA Tour based on his success this year.
Ryan Gerard, who played for DiBitetto at North Carolina, finished the NCAA tournament last May with no status on any tour and now has special temporary membership on the PGA Tour via his success on PGA Tour Canada and a fourth-place finish at the Honda Classic after Monday qualifying there earlier this year.
For the top players, PGA Tour U offers a performance-based reward for college success. It is another version of golf’s meritocracy.
“We talk about it, but it’s like anything else: If you spend too much time looking at the rankings to see if you’re going to be an all-American, you’re looking at the wrong thing,” DiBitetto said.
“It’s the same with PGA Tour U. If that’s your focus, you’re focusing on the wrong thing. But we remind them that if you are where your feet are, you’re going to be all right.
“What has been created is a job supply, and every tournament week is like a job interview.”
Now it’s graduation time, there are career opportunities to be filled, and PGA Tour U is handing out the jobs.
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Kathryn Riley, USGA