The Auburn men's golf program has had five former athletes advance to the final round of the PGA Tour Qualifying Tournament, more commonly referred to as "Q-School."
Will Claxton, Reid Edstrom and Lee Williams advanced from a tournament at Redstone Golf Club in Humble, Texas, and Jimmy Brandt and Glenn Northcutt qualified at Hombre Golf Club in Panama City Beach, Fla.
Williams had the most dramatic day of the five finalists, carding six birdies on the back nine and making the cut line by two strokes. Williams' 66 vaulted him from 29th into the top 10 and into the Q-School final stage for the first time since 2006.
This system dates back to 1965, and since 2009 the process has involved four stages. The prequalifying stage consists of five tournaments held in September at various warm-weather courses in the United States. Nearly 40 players advance to the first stage from each tournament.
The first stage has 13 tournaments in October. The player pool has the winners from the prequalifying stage, along with players who were exempted from the opening round.
The top 25 in each tournament then advance to the second stage. Exemptions are in play here as well, and the top 20 golfers from each of the six November tournaments advance.
This year's final qualifying stage is Wednesday through Monday at PGA West in La Quinta, Calif. Roughly the top 30 players in that final tournament receive full exempt status on the PGA for the following year.
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