The First Stage of European Tour Qualifying School is under way with European Tour hopefuls beginning the gruelling process at The Players Club in England.
Four – European Tour wins this season by players who teed it up at last year’s First Stage. After advancing through all three stages, Kurt Kitayama won the AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open at Anahita in just his third-career start on the European Tour and then became a two-time winner at the Oman Open.
Meanwhile, Guido Migliozzi won the Magical Kenya Open presented by Absa and then claimed his second European Tour title at the Belgian Knockout in June. The beauty of Qualifying School…
Nine – First Stage venues, including Arlandastad Golf, which returns as a Qualifying School site for the first time since 2006.
36 – rounds of golf will be played across all nine venues during the First Stage.
Six – weeks from the beginning of First Stage to the end. Section A at The Players Club gets the action under way from September 3-6 while Section E Bom Sucesso and Section E Golf d’Hardelot bring First Stage to a close from October 9-12.
30 – Americans teeing it up in the opening First Stage event at The Players Club – over a third of the field.
838 – players participated in First Stage Qualifying School in 2017 – a record amount – which could be broken this year.
24 – under par was Kitayama’s winning score at First Stage Section D Golf d’Hardelot last year.
1999 – the debut year for First Stage as part of the newly established three stage qualifying process. Five locations formed First Stage Qualifying School. All non-exempt players were now required to attend First Stage with the qualifiers then progressing. First and Second Stage events were also now played over four rounds rather than three.
