Former PGA TOUR champions among q-school finalists

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Mark Brooks has seven PGA TOUR wins but is making his first q-school finals appearance in 21 years.

LA QUINTA, Calif. -- There was a time in his career when Mark Brooks could realistically anticipate opening the PGA TOUR season with a trip to Maui to play in the winners-only Mercedes-Benz Championship.

After all, he had seven tournament titles on his resume, including the PGA Championship in 1996. In fact, he captured two other TOUR events that year and earned more than $1 million for the first time in his career.

This week, though, the three-time Texas All-American finds himself in California at the PGA TOUR National Qualifying Tournament simply trying to get his full playing privileges back for the 2009 season. The last time Brooks went to the finals of six-round q-school, which begins Wednesday, was in 1987 when he was 26 years old.

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Brooks, though, hasn't finished in the all-exempt top 125 on the money list since 2002. So he has come to the California desert to try to earn one of the TOUR cards that go to the low 25 players and ties at the end of 108 grueling holes on Monday.

The 47-year-old Texan is one of 21 players in the field of 163 at PGA West who have combined for 49 TOUR victories. In fact, 10 of them are, like Brooks, multiple TOUR winners -- including another seven-time champ in John Huston, who is also making his first trip to the finals since 1987.

Brooks -- and the others -- have status as a past champion on the priority ranking system that determines the way fields are selected for TOUR events. Past champions are No. 29 on the priority list, though, well behind the exempt top 125 on the money list and two rungs down the ladder from the players who finished Nos. 126-150.

Q-school grads and the top 25 on the Nationwide Tour are mixed alternately (based on the order of their finish) into a category that ranks 24th on the priority list. So the security of the TOUR card Brooks could earn in California gives him the opportunity to enter more events without having to write for sponsor's exemptions or languish on a waiting list of alternates.

Most importantly, more events translate into more chances to earn money that could land Brooks, or anyone else in the field at PGA West, among the all-exempt 125 at the end of next year.

Among other past champions competing in q-school this week are Notah Begay III, Joe Durant, and Carlos Franco, who have four apiece, while Robert Gamez and Olin Browne each have three victories. Two-time winners include Michael Bradley, Paul Stankowski and Frank Lickliter II while Guy Boros, Glen Day, Robert Damron, Jason Gore, Neal Lancaster, Ted Purdy, Chris Riley, Chris Smith, Garrett Willis and Willie Wood each have won once on TOUR.

Fifteen players who finished between Nos. 126-150 on the PGA TOUR money list in 2008 are also entered in an attempt to move their way up the ladder -- Patrick Sheehan (No. 128), Joe Durant (129), Charles Warren (130), Gore (134), Matt Jones (135), Jason Day (136), Jay Williamson (137), Robert Garrigus (138), Steve Allan (139), James Driscoll (141), Scott Sterling (144), Kevin Stadler (145), Tag Ridings (147), Tommy Gainey (148) and Lickliter (149).

In sharp contrast to these experienced players are the young guns like Ricky Barnes, Matt Every, Spencer Levin, Bryce Molder and Webb Simpson, each one vying to renew collegiate rivalries in the big leagues and cash in on the bounty that is the PGA TOUR.

Barnes, who beat Levin in the quarterfinals on his way to the 2002 U.S. Amateur title, already has a TOUR card by virtue of finishing 25th on the Nationwide Tour money list. He has come to q-school, though, in an effort to improve that number and gain more access for 2009. Levin, who finished 22nd, and Molder, who was 23rd, are attempting to do the same.

Simpson, who completed his eligibility at Wake Forest last spring, posted a pair of second-place finishes in six starts on the Nationwide Tour this summer. Even with that limited schedule, he finished 45th on the Nationwide Tour money list and enters q-school with confidence. He advanced to the finals after tying for 10th at the second stage event at Callaway Gardens, Ga.

After the PGA TOUR cards have been decided Monday, the next number of players nearest to 50 will receive fully exempt membership on the Nationwide Tour. The remaining players who have made it to the final stage of q-school will have conditionally exempt status on the Nationwide Tour.