‘European Tour FINAL qualifying – PGA CATALUNYA’
Last week I reported on the European Tour 2nd stage qualifying event held at Las Colinas with the successful players joining other qualifiers from different courses to make up a field of 150 players chasing 25 spots for the full European Tour for 2015.There was a rather unique and historic event which took place during the competition when American John Hahn shot a score of 58 but followed this the next day with 78 and failed to qualify as he ultimately finished in 50th place .The winner was Finnish player Mikko Korhonen on -20 closely followed by Argentinian Ricardo Gonzales on -18.Of the qualifiers from Las Colinas ,Richard McEvoy and Chris Paisley both qualified easily but Sam Walker the new course record holder at Las Colinas failed to quality on -3 and finished on a tie for 43rd place. Those that failed to qualify will now have to ply their trade on the Challenge Tour or hope for a sponsors invite to some events where they would hope to win enough money to prevent going through this stressful process next year. There were some former Ryder Cup team members and seasoned tour regulars and winner who failed to gain their full card for 2015 including ,Philip Price, Ignacio Garrido, Jose Manuel Lara, Peter Hedblom, Peter Lawrie, Philip Archer, Nick Dougherty, Michael Jonzon and Jean Francois Remesy to name a few. Such is the depth of the European tour these days