The author of a new book about the European Tour Q School predicts that golf’s most prestigious end-of-season qualifying tournament will merge with its Asian counterpart before the year 2020.
Cruel School: The 40-Year History of Golf’s European Tour Q School by bestselling golf writer Ross Biddiscombe is now on sale in paperback format (with the eBook available later this month) and includes a section on the future of the event that was first staged in 1976.
“A merger between the European Tour and Asian Tour Q Schools in the near future would make perfect sense because the two tours announced their closer working relationship in August,” says Biddiscombe.
“The European Tour’s deal with PGA Catalunya in Spain as the Q School Final Stage venue ends in 2017, so that might be the catalyst for change,” he continues. “I would guess a new grand final with qualifiers from both tours to be staged somewhere in either Turkey or the Middle East a few years after that.”
Cruel School is a fascinating new book celebrating the 40th anniversary of one of golf’s most compelling tournaments. When the PGA Tour’s Q School in America stopped offering direct entry to main tour events in 2013, the European Tour’s School became the most important qualifying tournament in world golf attracting increasing numbers of Americans and other players from over two dozen countries.
The book charts the rising importance of this annual tournament – often called “golf’s torture chamber” – that can make or break the tour aspirations of even the best golfers.
Having spent the better part of a decade following the Q School, Biddiscombe is a proven expert having written many news stories, features and blogs plus two previous books about the European Tour’s version of the tournament. Great champions such as Colin Montgomerie, Ian Poulter, Jose Maria Olazabal, Lee Westwood, Retief Goosen, Darren Clarke, Justin Rose and Vijay Singh have all graduated from the European Tour Q School in the past, while stars of the future like Matt Fitzpatrick (in 2014) and Ireland’s Paul Dunne (2015) are more recent Q School Tour Card winners.
Biddiscombe’s two previous Q School books, both under the name Golf On The Edge, were published in 2008 and 2009 respectively and focused on the struggles of journeymen golfers who are regular visitors to the Q School such as current Senior Tour star Phil Golding who made 19 visits, the most by any British pro.
Cruel School brings together the remarkable research of Golf on the Edge with fresh interviews and many insightful new tales of the event that has been such an important first step on the professional ladder for so many top players.
Cruel School: The 40-Year History of Golf’s European Tour Q School is published by Constant Sports Publishing and Dolman Scott and is now available in paperback from www.amazon.co.uk and will be published as an eBook later this month. For more details, go to www.golfontheedge.co.uk