PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Shortly after Trevor Cone polished off shooting 5-under 66 at Sawgrass Country Club on Friday, he offered an interesting take on PGA Tour Q-School.
“I think there should only be cards for Korn Ferry Tour status,” he said.
The PGA Tour has reduced the number of full-exempt cards from 125 to 100 and the number of graduates from the Korn Ferry Tour, the developmental circuit, from 30 down to 20.
Cone failed to make the top 100 so the former Virginia Tech golfer is one of 176 players vying for five spots at Q-School after finishing 161st on the FedEx Cup season-long points standings. Regardless of his result, he will have KFT status next season, which he said has freed him up this week.
He sits at 7-under 134 at the midway point of the tournament, good for a five-way tie for first, along with A.J. Ewart, John Pak, Michael Feagles and Kota Kaneko. Only the top five will get cards, meaning there will be a playoff if there is a tie for fifth.
Still, Cone said he thinks graduating from the season-long money list is a better barometer of future success and the correct number should have been 25 KFT grads and zero Q-School grads.
“As much as it pains me to say it considering the position I’m in this week, I think if you went back to 25 and made this tournament strictly for Korn Ferry status, that would be a better option in my mind,” he said. “I say that even with the position I’m in and I’m grateful for that.”
Cone, 33, served on the PGA Tour’s Player Advisory Council this season after Lanto Griffin declined to serve a second term. Cone enjoyed serving as a member of the pathways committee, choosing that role given his vast knowledge of that world for the better part of a decade.
“I think Lanto was supposed to be the guy from our category but he turned it down. That was a shock to me. I didn’t know I was that well liked or that well respected as an older guy. I enjoyed it though,” Cone said. “I’d like to do it again.”
He’d also like a shot at a third season on the PGA Tour. He failed to keep his card as a rookie in 2022-23 and earned his card back after polishing his wedge and short game. He finished 27th on KFT last year when 30 pros were elevated to the big leagues. This season, however, didn’t live up to his expectations.
“I thought my main hindrance the first time was not seeing the golf courses and being new to everything,” he said. “I definitely became a better golfer even if the results didn’t show and I came to Q-School feeling as though my game was trending.”
Cone, who is making his seventh trip to Q-School and fourth to the final, is poised to see if the third time on the Tour can be the charm for him. While he’d like to see the Tour run the numbers to determine if Q-School grads or KFT grads have a higher success rate of keeping their card, he’s not going to complain if he’s the beneficiary of one of five cards to be handed out on Sunday. He just hopes that this is the last time the Tour reduces the number of players with full status to play in the big leagues.
“If we keep shrinking that’s going to be a problem,” Cone said.
