3 tours tracked |
45 stage sites |
5 PGA TOUR cards |
66 stories in the archive |
Every fall, golf runs its most unforgiving final exam. No sponsor invites, no second chances, no "next week." Just 72 holes, then 72 more, then a final stage where a single three-putt can decide whether a player spends next year on a major tour or back on the mini-tours.
That exam is Q-School, and in 2026 it is happening on three continents at once. The PGA TOUR, the DP World Tour and the LPGA each run their own qualifying ladder, with their own stages, sites, card counts and rules. Keeping track of all of it used to mean juggling a dozen tabs.
Not anymore. The AmateurGolf.com Q-School hub puts every stage, every site, every leaderboard and every story in one place, and it is built with one audience in mind: the elite amateurs and recent college stars taking their first swing at a tour card.
Why Q-School is an amateur golf story
Q-School is where the amateur game and the professional game meet. Top-ranked college players and world amateurs tee it up at Pre-Qualifying and First Stage sites alongside career pros, and every year a handful of them make real noise.
- Paul Beauvy was named a First Stage qualifier at DP World Tour Qualifying School this September, as an amateur.
- Jake Hall was the lone amateur to reach the 2024 PGA TOUR Q-School Final Stage, and finished T18 at 12 under.
- Ben Warian was the only amateur to advance from a 2024 First Stage site to Second Stage, where he finished T4.
- Adela Cernousek tied for medalist at the 2024 LPGA Q-Series Qualifying Stage at 14 under.
The catch: an amateur who earns tour status has to turn professional to accept it. On the LPGA side, Final Qualifying is professionals-only, so advancing means ending college eligibility before teeing off. Those are the decisions that make this the most dramatic stretch of the calendar for the players we cover all year.
The fall calendar: what's next
| Dates | Tour | Stage | Where |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 13–16 | LPGA | Qualifying Stage | Plantation G&CC, Venice, Fla. |
| Oct 20–Nov 6 | PGA TOUR | First Stage | 14 sites across the U.S. |
| Oct 29–Nov 1 | DP World Tour | Second Stage | 4 sites in Spain |
| Nov 6–11 | DP World Tour | Final Stage | INFINITUM, La Pineda, Spain |
| Nov 19–23 | LPGA | Final Qualifying | RTJ Golf Trail at Magnolia Grove, Mobile, Ala. |
| Dec 1–4 | PGA TOUR | Second Stage | 5 sites across the U.S. |
| Dec 10–13 | PGA TOUR | Final Stage | TPC Sawgrass (Dye's Valley), Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. |
Tap any stage to jump to its sites and leaderboards on the Q-School hub. Results post there as each stage is played.
Road No. 1: PGA TOUR Q-School
The ladder: Pre-Qualifying, First Stage, Second Stage, Final Stage. Four stages, 28 sites, and only five PGA TOUR cards at the end of it.
Pre-Qualifying is already in the books, with eight 54-hole sites from Woodstock, Ill., to La Quinta, Calif. Next up is the big one: First Stage, 14 sites over three weeks starting Oct. 20, from Magnolia Grove Crossing in Mobile to Bayonet on the Monterey Peninsula to Arizona National in Tucson. Site medalists earn PGA TOUR Americas membership, and roughly 18 to 22 players move on from each site.
Second Stage (Dec. 1–4) is where the Korn Ferry Tour comes into focus. Site winners lock in Korn Ferry Tour membership. Then comes the Final Stage at TPC Sawgrass's Dye's Valley Course, Dec. 10–13: 72 holes, no cut, a field of roughly 165 to 175. The top five and ties (settled by playoff) earn PGA TOUR cards. Finishers 6 through 45 earn Korn Ferry Tour membership, and everyone else leaves with Korn Ferry and PGA TOUR Americas status.
Amateurs with a 0.0 handicap or better can advance through every stage, and several reach Second Stage each year.
Follow it: PGA TOUR Q-School stages & sites · 2026 Guide and Tracker
Road No. 2: DP World Tour Qualifying School
The ladder: First Stage, Second Stage, Final Stage. Three stages, 252 holes, 15 sites across Europe.
The European road is already in full swing. First Stage wrapped up in late September after 10 sites across France, England, Belgium, Germany, Sweden, Austria and Denmark, with roughly the top quarter of each field moving on. That's where many of Europe's best amateurs, players fresh off the Amateur Championship, the European Amateur and the Walker Cup, take their first shot.
Second Stage runs Oct. 29–Nov. 1 at four Spanish sites: Desert Springs, Fontanals, Las Pinaillas and Isla Canela Links. Survivors head to INFINITUM in La Pineda for a six-round, 108-hole Final Stage (Nov. 6–11), with a cut after 72 holes. Players alternate the Lakes and Hills courses for four rounds before the final 36 on Lakes. About one in ten of the 156-player field leaves with a DP World Tour card. Everyone who makes the 72-hole cut earns HotelPlanner Tour status.
Follow it: DP World Tour Q-School stages & sites · 2026 Guide and Tracker
Road No. 3: LPGA Q-Series
The ladder: Pre-Qualifying, Qualifying Stage, Final Qualifying. The most generous card count of the three, and the one where amateurs face the hardest choice.
The Qualifying Stage tees off next week, Oct. 13–16, on the Bobcat and Panther courses at Plantation Golf & Country Club in Venice, Fla. It's 72 holes with no cut. Players either move on to Final Qualifying, or finish 72 holes and earn Epson Tour status.
Final Qualifying runs Nov. 19–23 on the Falls and Crossings courses at the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail's Magnolia Grove in Mobile. It's 90 holes with a cut after four rounds, and the top 25 and ties earn LPGA Tour status. Last year, Helen Briem was medalist and 31 players earned LPGA cards.
Follow it: LPGA Q-Series stages & sites · 2026 Guide and Tracker
What you get on the Q-School hub
- Stage-by-stage site tables for every tour, with dates, locations, status and a direct link to each leaderboard.
- Season trackers that update as players advance, so you can see who moved on and who's still chasing a card.
- Advancement rules in plain English: how many advance, what status each finish earns, and where amateurs stand.
- FAQs on format, eligibility, venues and cards.
- A deep archive. 32 PGA TOUR stories, 27 LPGA stories and 7 DP World Tour stories, going back to 2011, from Jordan Spieth's Q-School decision to Blayne Barber's famous self-DQ.
- Live leaderboards tied into AmateurGolf.com's live scoring network.
The pathways themselves keep shifting, too. The Asian Tour has canceled its 2027 Q-School, one more reason the remaining schools matter so much to players trying to turn pro.
Bookmark it now
The next three months will produce dozens of storylines: a college senior who sneaks through First Stage, a former tour winner fighting to get back, an amateur who has to decide on the spot whether to turn pro. We'll be tracking all of it.
Start here: AmateurGolf.com/q-school. One hub, three tours, every road to a tour card.
