This Former Tour Pro Recalls Wild And Wacky Stories From Q-School

I miss the old 6-round PGA Tour Q-School tournaments. Blood, sweat, tears, joy and anguish littered the annual torture test.

Yesterday, Lee McCoy was the medalist at the Web.com Q-School to gain his card.

Those who finished second through 10th and ties are exempt into the first 12 events of the 2018 Web.com Tour season, and among those was Australia’s Curtis Luck, 21, the 2016 U.S. Amateur champion, who was No. 1 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking before turning pro after his T-41 in the Masters. Luck tied for third in the qualifying tournament, six back of McCoy.

Maverick McNealy, a former No. 1 amateur who was ranked second when he turned pro after the Walker Cup in September, was tied for 11th until Connor Arendell, playing in the final group, bogeyed the last hole. It dropped Arendell into a tie for 10th and moved McNearly up to T-10.

Golfweek’s Kevin Casey reports on the wild and wacky sagas of past Q-Schools via former pro Dave Schreyer.

Schreyer, 51, is now the director of golf at Huntingdon, a Division III school, but before his coaching days, he spent nearly two decades in pro golf.

The former Huntingdon player’s time on the PGA Tour was short, with only one full season in 1992 after passing through Q-School to get there, and he had three such campaigns on the Web.com Tour (1998, ’99, ’02). He never won on either circuit.

Oh, but does he remember PGA Tour Q-School … a qualifying process he attempted 17 times.

“You see some weird stuff,” Schreyer said.

The night before the final round of second stage one year, Schreyer slipped in a bathroom and knocked himself out – meriting a trip to the emergency room.

Rather than withdrawing, Schreyer went straight from the emergency room to the golf course the next day and played the final round (in agony) with a concussion.

“And I missed (advancing) by a shot,” Schreyer said with a laugh.

Another year, Schreyer fell down a flight of stairs the week before final stage and landed awkwardly on his elbow. The injury forced him to abstain from doing anything with the elbow until final stage started. Not even hit a ball.

He got treatment but showed up to final stage cold turkey and missed out on a PGA Tour card by a shot.

“I’ve played with a bunch of guys (at Q-School) that were throwing up on the 18th tee box,” Schreyer said.

But one memory sticks out.

Schreyer can’t recall the player in question, but what that man did will forever be seared into his brain.

One year at Bear Lakes Country Club in West Palm, Fla., Schreyer and his group were on the final hole of final stage.

As Schreyer’s playing competitor looked like he was about to hit his tee shot, that’s when something extraordinary happened.

“He stood on the tee box and he got ready to hit and he was right on the bubble whether he was going to make it or not,” Schreyer said. “Then he backed off and he sang the (U.S.) national anthem.”

No, the man did not mutter it. The intensity of Q-School pressure led him to belt it out, the whole thing, as a possible relaxer.

It had Schreyer wondering, Did that just happen?

“He sang the whole national anthem right there on the tee box, stepped up, piped it right down the middle,” Schreyer said with a laugh. “Probably the funniest thing I ever saw in my life.”