It will happen numerous times this weekend at TPC Twin Cities in Blaine. Spectators will be perched along a hole at the 3M Open, witness a group stroll through, see a few unfamiliar names and ask “Who’s that?”
Answer: Someone potentially fighting for his PGA Tour life.
The 3M Open is the penultimate event of the tour’s regular season. After the Wyndham Championship in two weeks, only the top 70 players in the year-long FedExCup standings advance to the playoffs.
Everyone else waits for the fall season — a series of eight events that will determine, for many, whether or not they play more than a handful of times on the PGA Tour next year, if at all.
The top 125 golfers on the FedExCup standings at the end of the fall have full status for 2025. Players ranked No. 126-150 have conditional status, meaning they’ll likely play fewer events, and only when spots are available.
Players outside the top 150 are often relegated to the Korn Ferry Tour. Which, for a number of PGA Tour rookies this year, is the feeder tour from which they came just a year ago. The PGA Tour dream can end mere months after it starts.
Raul Pereda is a PGA Tour rookie who earned his spot this season by finishing in the top five at the PGA Tour Q School final stage at the end of 2023. He didn’t play on the Korn Ferry Tour a year ago.
The 28-year-old is only now growing accustomed to the rigorous travel schedule that comes with playing one tournament after another at weekly stops across the country.
Yes, he’s living out his professional dream, but it’s one that requires adaptation. And, to this point, it likely hasn’t felt all that glorious.
This week’s event is Pereda’s 17th PGA Tour start of the season. He has made just two cuts to date. He currently is 217th in the FedEx Cup standings. Pereda called the lack of success “a slap in the face, for sure.”
“Sometimes you think, ‘Did I get lucky in Q School? What happened?’ ” Pereda said. “But if I’m here, it’s for a reason. I’ve worked hard my entire life, and I’m working 10 times harder than I ever did. It’s going to come. Sooner or later, it’s going to come.”
Each week is a new opportunity. And those opportunities are coming more frequently for lesser-known players at this point in the season. Early in the season, events are often filled by the well-established players with high priority, leaving PGA Tour rookies to watch from the sidelines.
Many Korn Ferry Tour grads, for instance, played just one time in February.
“It’s kind of the boat you’re in, right? Unless you win or you play really well in the beginning of the season, you know what you’re getting yourself into,” Korn Ferry Tour grad Parker Coody said. “It’s fine. Everyone has gone through that process.”
At this point in the year, starts are more consistent. Korn Ferry Tour grad Paul Barjon is playing for the fifth straight week.
“Beginning of the season, you just don’t know how many tournaments you’re going to get and when you’re going to play, so it’s a little tricky. But yeah, to get a few tournaments in a row and to get into a rhythm is awesome,” said Barjon, who currently is 176th in points. “And then if you start playing good, you can kind of build momentum off of that. Same thing if you don’t play good.”
If you experience much of the latter, pressure truly starts to mount. Players at the bottom of the Tour’s totem pole are at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to accumulating points and maintaining status.
Many are Tour first-timers, meaning they’re seeing cities and courses for the first time every week they tee it up. And they have to earn each point, while the Tour’s top 50-plus players are gifted points in no-cut, signature events as part of a new system largely built to reward and protect the most popular players.
That’s not to say it’s a system that can’t be broken through. Jake Knapp is a Korn Ferry Tour grad in this week’s field and currently inside the top 50 of the FedExCup Standings, largely thanks to his victory in Mexico in the spring. It’s possible, but not easy. And, as tournaments come and go, the duress heightens.
With likely 10 starts to play for guys either on the edge of or outside that top 125 or — even more pressing, 150 — the clock is ticking.
“The points are the same in January as they are in October,” said Coody, who is 156th in points entering this week. “You can’t really (think about the standings). You’ll kind of drive yourself nuts if you do that, so you just keep plugging along.”
That’s easier said than done.
“On the inside, sometimes the pressure is eating myself a little bit. Trying to get help with my psychologist and therapist that I see and trying to go through all this, but trying to take it one day at a time,” Pereda said. “I tell myself all the time — I lose a card, sure, it doesn’t matter. I’ll be back. And it’s a big learning curve for me. I didn’t play in the Korn Ferry. So trying to adapt. Trying to learn as much as possible and trying to get around with the bigger guys and learn a bit from them. Now I know as soon as I feel comfortable, I’m going to be making some moves here.”
All you can do, Coody noted, is “keep chasing it.”
“Hopefully, you can work on the right things and it’ll all come together,” he said. “Yeah, you just keep plugging along and doing it.”
Pereda noted good performances this week in Blaine and then next week at the Wyndham would alleviate an ample amount of pressure.
The nice thing…
