Shuffling the list

About every 5-7 events, the PGA Tour does a “reshuffle” of the guys who earned their 2012 cards via the Nationwide Tour or Q-School in 2011. What the heck does that mean? I came across Scott Stallings’ blog post from a year ago and he does an excellent job breaking it down:

If you’re not familiar with the way the PGA Tour works, here’s a quick explanation: I’m part of a category of 50 players on Tour who either qualified to be here through the Nationwide Tour (the tournament circuit below the PGA) or Q-School. Based on how we finished last year, we entered the PGA Tour ranked. After a tournament has been filled with past winners and the top 125 players on the previous year’s Money List, then my group fills the rest of slots in order according to our ranking. My number coming in was 26, which meant I had a good chance of getting into every tournament thus far.

Oh, how things change.

About every six events, the Tour looks at this list of players and reshuffles it according to how much money we’ve made so far. If you’ve played well enough, you don’t need to worry about the reshuffle because your standing won’t change much.

I’m now at the back of the pack, to put it bluntly. The waaay back. And that means that my schedule is going to get even more unpredictable.

Basically, the list is the order used to fill fields, so the better your number, the more tournaments you’ll get into, which gives you more opportunities to make more money before the next reshuffle.

Alright, a bunch of guys who were previously in the Honda Classic field were ousted — Brian Harman, Ted Potter Jr., Richard H. Lee, Jonas Blixt, Mark Anderson, Miguel Angel Carballo, Roberto Castro, Danny Lee and Vaughn Taylor — because of the reshuffle (since they haven’t played well enough; Tim Finchem’s advice: “play better”). A few guys — Dicky Pride, Michael Allen and Alejandro Canizares — got in by way of finishing in the top ten at Mayakoba Golf Classic (by the way, it makes no sense that a top ten at the WGC doesn’t get you in).

Here’s the numerical reshuffle list through last week:

1. John Mallinger
2. Sang-Moon Bae
3. Matt Every
4. Jarrod Lyle
5. Brendon Todd
6. Colt Knost
7. Ken Duke
8. Martin Flores
9. Bobby Gates
10. Harris English
11. Greg Owen
12. Jason Kokrak
13. Daniel Summerhays
14. Will Claxton
15. Seung-Yul Noh
16. Gary Christian
17. William McGirt
18. Brian Harman
19. Ted Potter, Jr.
20. Richard H. Lee
21. Jonas Blixt
22. Mark D. Anderson
23. Miguel Angel Carballo
24. Roberto Castro
25. Erik Compton
26. Danny Lee
27. Vaughn Taylor
28. Nathan Green
29. Duffy Waldorf
30. Troy Kelly
31. Tommy Biershenk
32. Kyle Reifers
33. Mathew Goggin
34. Gavin Coles
35. Steve Wheatcroft
36. Kevin Kisner
37. Marco Dawson
38. Russell Knox
39. Billy Hurley, III
40. Patrick Sheehan
41. Stephen Gangluff
42. Charlie Beljan
43. Alexandre Rocha
44. Edward Loar
45. Garth Mulroy
46. Scott Brown
47. Kyle Thompson
48. Daniel Chopra
49. Scott Dunlap
50. Michael Putnam
51. Neal Lancaster
52. Peter Tomasulo
53. Carl Paulson
54. David Berganio, Jr.
55. Fran Quinn
56. Joe Affrunti

I’d post the initial rankings before the reshuffle, but I don’t want to confuse people. Ah, what the heck — I’ll do it. This is the list from the start of the year.

1.  Brendon Todd (QT1)
2.  Ted Potter, Jr. (NWT2)
3.  Stephen Gangluff (QT2)
4.  Mathew Goggin (NWT3)
5.  Bobby Gates (QT3)
6.  Jason Kokrak (NWT4)
7.  Seung-yul Noh (QT4)
8.  Jonas Blixt (NWT5)
9.  Tommy Biershenk (QT5)
10. Danny Lee (NWT6)
11. Jarrod Lyle (QT6)
12. Ken Duke (NWT7)
13. Vaughn Taylor (QT7)
14. Scott Brown (NWT8)
15. Bob Estes (QT8)
16. Gary Christian (NWT9)
17. Brian Harman (QT9)
18. Miguel Angel Carballo (NWT10)
19. Marco Dawson (QT10)
20. Troy Kelly (NWT11)
21. Sang-Moon Bae (QT11)
22. Russell Knox (NWT12)
23. Kevin Kisner (QT12)
24. Erik Compton (NWT13)
25. John Mallinger (NWT14)
26. Roberto Castro (QT14)
27. Kyle Thompson (NWT15)
28. Charlie Beljan (QT15)
29. Kyle Reifers (NWT16)
30. William McGirt (QT16)
31. Gavin Coles (NWT17)
32. Harris English (QT17)
33. Matt Every (NWT18)
34. Patrick Sheehan (QT18)
35. Daniel Chopra (NWT19)
36. Greg Owen (QT19)
37. Steve Wheatcroft (NWT20)
38. Scott Dunlap (QT20)
39. Garth Mulroy (NWT21)
40. Daniel Summerhays (QT21)
41. Mark D. Anderson (NWT22)
42. Edward Loar (QT22)
43. Will Claxton (QT23)
44. Martin Flores (NWT24)
45. Richard H. Lee (QT24)
46. Billy Hurley, III (NWT25)
47. Alexandre Rocha (QT26)
48. John Huh (QT27)
49. Nathan Green (QT28)
50. Colt Knost (QT29)
51. Duffy Waldorf (med)
52. Shane Bertsch (med)
53. Michael Putnam (med)
54. Neal Lancaster (med)
55. Peter Tomasulo (med)
56. Carl Paulson (med)
57. David Berganio, Jr. (med)
58. Fran Quinn (med)
59. Joe Affrunti (med)

For the guys in this category, there’s actually quite a bit of pressure to play well on the West Coast swing, but problem is, you have to get into tournaments first. If you’re toward the bottom half, then you’ll probably get three or four starts and you better make the most of them! John Huh certainly did. Now he’s no longer in the “Q-school/Nationwide Tour” category, he’s graduated to the “tournament winners in the last two years.”