The Cruelest Season: Q-Schools are underway for Colorado pros

Colorado’s Davis Bryant finishes as top American again in European Q-School competition

By Jim Bebbington

Qualification tournaments are underway for professional golf around the world, and the annual gamut can make or break pro careers.

On Wednesday the DP World Tour Q-School competition concluded after six days of grueling golf in Spain. Aurora’s Davis Bryant, who played on the DP World Tour in 2025, finished tied for 8th place with a closing round of 1 over par to make the cut and retain his status for next year.

Over the six days Davis was at various times well back in the field, then as high as 2nd place. On Wednesday he began the day in 5th place, shot two birdies, and appeared cruising to a successful finish. Then a flurry of bogeys and one double-bogey on the front nine dropped him perilously close to falling out of the top 20. The top 20 finishers earned higher status for 2026, giving them better opportunities to enter more tournaments next year.

Davis rallied on the back nine of the round on the Lakes Course, Infinitum, in Tarragona Spain, with two birdies on the final three holes to finish 8th.

The DP World Tour Q-School is the first of three major tour qualification tournaments of the season. Later this month and next the LPGA and PGA Q-Schools move through their final stages.

Davis, former Colorado resident Dan Erickson, and former University of Colorado golfer Yannik Paul all competed in this week’s DP World Tour Q-School. Neither Erickson nor Paul made the mid-tournament cut and both will head into 2026 with lesser status to enter DP World Tour events than they had this year.

Davis is coming off his first season on a major tour. For the second straight year he was the highest-finishing American in the DP World Tour qualification process. In 2025 he played a mix of tournaments between DP World Tour main events and those of its developmental league, the Hotel Planner Tour.

By mid-summer Davis had played well enough to be ranked in the top 100 of all DP World Tour players, which would have granted him full access in 2026. His best perfomance came in early July when he tied for 4th at the DP World Tour’s BMW International Open in Germany, winning close to $100,000. But in August and September he missed cuts in several tournaments and dropped below that line, leading him back into the Q-School process in order to retain his status for 2026.

“I’m glad that’s over,” he said Wednesday morning from Spain. “I’m extremely proud of the way I hung in there today after some dropped shots on the end of the front nine. I am thrilled to be able to gain my full status back for next season. I will be in the same position as I was in the past season so should be able to play a fairly full schedule and looking forward to making my first start for the 2026 season at the BMW Australian PGA Championship.”

Davis finished 2025 with $323,000 in earnings on the two tours.

Erickson and Paul both have status for the 2026 Hotel Planner Tour. Erickson, whose family lived near Bertoud recently, earned around $200,000 in his first season on the DP World Tour with his best finish being tied for 6th at the Porsche Singapore Classic in March. Paul has played on the DP World Tour the past three seasons and has one win but lost his card in October after a lackluster 2025 season.

“The universe had a different plan; it’s hard,” he told an interviewer in October. “I just didn’t play well when it mattered.”

For the PGA Tour Q-School process, Jake Staino of Englewood and Griffin Barela of Lakewood both made it through first round qualifying tournaments which were held in early October. They will compete in the second stage the first week of December, and if they make it through that will move onto the PGA Tour Q-School finals Dec. 11 to 14 played at TPC Sawgrass in Florida. AJ Ott of Fort Collins, who has played professionally for several seasons, missed the cut to move to the second stage by one stroke in a qualifier at Wilderness Ridge Country Club in Lincoln, Neb.

Other Colorado players who participated in the first stage of the PGA Tour Q-School this year but did not advance include Connor Jones of Westminster, Collin Englehardt of Castle Rock, Zahkai Brown of Golden, Derek Fribbs of Aurora and Franklin Huang of Lafayette.

The LPGA Q-School finals are scheduled for Dec. 4 to 8 at at Magnolia Grove Golf Course in Mobile, Alabama. Sabrina Iqbal, a former University of Colorado player, is among those qualified. Also qualifying are several players who have competed in the Colorado Women’s Open in recent years, including Sophie Yixing Guo of China who finished tied for 4th this summer. Others include Annie Kim, Sarah Rhee, 2025 Top 10 finisher Nika Ito, Elizabeth Moon, Alexis Phadungmartvorakul, Katherine Muzi and Jiaze Sun.

Colorado AvidGolfer Magazine is the state’s leading resource for golf and the lifestyle that surrounds it, publishing eight issues annually and proudly delivering daily content via coloradoavidgolfer.com.

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