Rookie season coming down to the wire

First-year pro heading through difficult Q-School process

By Jim Bebbington

For professional golfers in their rookie season like Aurora’s Davis Bryant, their first year ends with their profession putting its foot on the gas.

Bryant is going through two Q-School competitions – qualification schools – as his first year of professional competition comes to a close. One, for the DPT World Tour, requires him to fly to Europe and play this week. The other, the Korn Ferry Q School, is nothing more than the gateway to the PGA.

Both competitions take place over several months. Davis went into the year knowing he was going to try the Korn Ferry route but added the European Q-School process as a backup after winning the Inspirato Colorado Open this summer. The $100,000 paycheck made more travel possible.

“I want to give myself an opportunity to play at the next level, whatever the level may look like, and really not trying to put my eggs in one basket,” he said before heading over to Spain for the second round of the DPT World Tour qualifiers. “So yeah, fortunately, I have a great opportunity to hopefully pursue both for the six weeks. But I love my chances.”

Davis filled his first season with a nearly constant series of mini-tour events. He won two state opens – Colorado’s and Wyoming’s – and finished in the top 10 regularly. If neither Q-school works out, he’s ready to do that again in 2025.

“I’m very pleased to have some really good results,” he said. “I’m pleased to have a lot of experiences and different courses, different states, different cultures. I’ve seen a lot of different parts of the world, a couple of different places outside the country which has been cool. I’m  very, very happy with like how I’ve transitioned from amateur golf or junior golf to college golf and college golf to professional golf.”

Davis said he could learn what it was like only by going through it.

“Everyone said it was going to be different in a way, but they didn’t say really what it was going to be different,” he said. “Some of the some of the biggest differences are, you know, in college, you’re with a team of eight to 10 players.”

The money at the top of the PGA Tour can make the top stars look like they are living a constant dream life. But they are often surrounded by coaches and many have strong partnerships with caddies and have spouses to lean on. Everybody needs someone.

For Bryant, his team is his extended family.

“Yeah, you’re certainly not alone – I mean, I wasn’t,” Bryant said. “I was alone in the moment (while making shots), but you’re you’re not alone emotionally or mentally. You know you have your parents, you have your siblings, you have grandparents, aunts and uncles that are supporting you and sending you text messages and calling you in between tournaments or when I’m driving state to state.” 

Family is crucial, and in that Bryant is surrounded by people who know what to ask. His parents Matt and Julie both work in the golf industry and his sister Emma is a high-level player now competing on the University of Denver golf team.

“With my former college coach or my Dad or someone like that, (conversations) are a little more detail-focused. But certainly having people on your team that help you – whether it’s helping you keep track of your expenses or helping you with your actual physical swing or talking to your psychologist about your mental game and how crappy that might have been for a couple of tournaments or whatever it might have been – it can take some pressure off different areas.”

On Oct. 31 Bryant will tee off at the Desert Springs Golf Club in Almería, Spain, in the second stage of the DPT World Tour Q-School process. He is scheduled to be in the first group off the tee.

If he is one of the top finishers there he will stay in Spain into early November and play in the Q-School finals in an attempt to earn playing privileges for the full 2025 season. The DPT World Tour winnings are largely lower than the PGA Tour and the travel is far more extensive, but the competition is high and top earners make millions. Colorado’s Gunner Wiebe is among several Americans on the DPT World Tour and has won nearly $600,000 over the last three seasons.

Qualify or not, Davis will then return to the U.S. for the Korn Ferry Tour qualification process. The top finishers in that, which wraps up in December, go straight onto the PGA Tour, while the rest fill out the field for the 2025 Korn Ferry season.

Davis said he is prepared to move ahead either way.

“It might not go great and I’m back reviewing what I want to do next year,” he said. ” And so I know that’s a possibility, but I can control what I can control right now and I’ve got two opportunities to move on to the next stage.”

If the Q-School process doesn’t work out this season, next year, he said he’ll play in more mini-tour events and increase the number of Monday qualifiers he plays in—qualifying rounds where the top handful of finishers make it into that week’s PGA Tour or Korn Ferry event.

But for now, he is taking it day by day and shot by shot, with the ultimate hope of joining the best in his profession on the PGA Tour—either now or later.

“Hopefully we’re starting 2025 in Hawaii, so that would be awesome,” he said.