By Brad Ziemer, British Columbia Golf

(October 21, 2024) - Much of the focus of the PGA TOUR’s fall season is centred on players trying to fight their way into the top 125 or stay inside that magic number to retain their playing privileges for 2025.

But there’s another race that gets less attention and Abbotsford’s Nick Taylor is in the thick of it. Players who finish the fall season 51st to 60th on the FedEx Cup points list earn a couple of nice perks in 2025.

They’ll get into two of the big-money Signature events next year — the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am on California’s Monterey Peninsula and The Genesis Championship at Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades, Calif.

That battle is the reason why Taylor has played so much of the fall season. He has only missed one of the first three fall events and is heading to Japan to play in this week’s Zozo Championship. Taylor tied for 54th at last week’s Shriners Children’s Open in Las Vegas and didn’t budge from his 58th spot on the points list.

Taylor is only guaranteed one Signature start next year. He’ll be in the field for the season-opening Sentry tournament in Maui by virtue of his win at this year’s WM Phoenix Open.

While Taylor is grinding it out this fall, his Abbotsford counterpart Adam Hadwin is enjoying plenty of down time. Hadwin made what will be his lone appearance this fall at the Shriners, where he missed the cut. Hadwin finished the regular season 47th on the points list and is exempt into all of next year’s Signature events.

Surrey’s Adam Svensson and Roger Sloan of Merritt are also playing lots of golf this fall. Svensson is also chasing that top 60 spot, but didn’t do himself any favours by missing the cut in Las Vegas. He dropped three places on the points list to 80th. Svensson is also in the Zozo Championship field this week.

While Taylor and Svensson have locked up their spots inside the top 125 and are just chasing extra starts for next year, Sloan is waging a much more meaningful battle. He is playing for his PGA TOUR life and it’s not going particularly well. Sloan missed the cut in Las Vegas and fell two spots to 174th on the points list. He did not make the Zozo field and is going to require a big finish in the final three fall events to salvage any status for 2025.

Ideally, Sloan wants to crack the top 125, which would make him fully exempt for 2025. That is going to require a top two-or-three finish. Sloan can retain conditional status — which would likely get him about a dozen starts in 2025 — if he can move inside the top 150.

TOURNAMENT HOST: It’s a home game on the road this week for the UBC Thunderbirds, who are playing host to the UBC Thunderbirds Men’s Invitational and the Gail Moore Intercollegiate at Gold Mountain Golf Club in Bremerton, Wash. The tournaments —54 holes for the 12 men’s teams on Gold Mountain’s Olympic course and 36 holes for the eight women’s teams on the Cascade course — will feature teams mainly from the NAIA’s Cascade Conference. The University of Victoria’s men’s and women’s teams will also compete.

The UBC women head into the tournament ranked No. 1 in the NAIA. “Our best players on the women’s side are playing their best and that’s when you know your team is in a good place,” said UBC coach Chris Macdonald. “I think we have a lot more depth than we have had in a while. Both of our rookies, Keira Hou and Sienna Harder, are good players and are contributing to the team and we have Grace Bell and Elizabeth Labbe playing well. So it’s really exciting.”

The UBC men have had a slow start and that is reflected in their current ranking — 12th in the NAIA. Macdonald hopes the men can hit the re-set button in Bremerton. “I told the guys the way to feel about it right now is to treat this as our first event of the season,” Macdonald said. “I really believe that because from here on we have good tournaments and we are going to have more depth in the field. Hopefully, that helps us build our ranking back up to a good place as we go forward.”

STOUFFER SIGNS: UBC has signed Nanoose Bay’s Brett Stouffer, who will join the men’s team next fall. Stouffer is the son of B.C. Golf Hall of Fame member Shelly Stouffer, who played at UBC in the early 1990s.

SCHOOL DAYS: Vancouver’s Leah John and Mary Parsons of Delta are both playing in this week’s second stage of the LPGA Tour Qualifying Series at Plantation Golf & Country Club in Venice, Fla. The 72-hole event, which was postponed earlier this month due to Hurricane Milton, will be played Oct. 22-25. The LPGA has not yet announced how many players will advance from this week’s event to the final stage of the Q-Series, which goes Dec. 5-9 in Mobile, Ala.

STAGE ONE: Three more British Columbians will attempt to get through the first stage of PGA TOUR qualifying school this week. James Allenby of Langley and Khan Lee of Chilliwack are both competing at a site in Murrieta, Calif., while Lawren Rowe of Squamish is playing at a site in Henryville, Ind. This is the second to last week of first-stage qualifying. Thus far, Richmond’s Chris Crisologo is the only British Columbian to survive first-stage qualifying.

Last week, Victoria’s Jeevan Sihota missed at a site in Albuquerque, N.M., and Vancouver’s Jake Lane failed to advance at a site in North Carolina. Second-stage qualifying goes at five sites in mid-November and early December. Vancouver’s Stuart Macdonald and A.J. Ewart of Coquitlam both earned a pass to second stage through their solid play on this year’s PGA Tour Americas circuit. The final stage of Q-school goes Dec. 12-15 at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.

CLUTCH COOP: Vernon’s Cooper Humphreys closed with a four-under 67 to help lead University of San Diego to the team title at the Visit Stockton Pacific Invitational in California. The two-time B.C. Amateur champion, who is in his freshman year at San Diego, finished tied for eighth overall in the 54-hole event at seven-under par. Humphreys had 17 birdies in his three rounds. San Diego won the team title with a score of 32-under, four better than Pacific University.

COLLEGIATE DEBUT: Vancouver's Michelle Liu tied for 11th in her debut with Harvard University at the Quinnipiac Classic in Wallingford, Conn. Liu, a former B.C. Women’s Amateur champion, missed the first two events of the season with an injury. Fellow Vancouver freshman and Harvard teammate Vanessa Zhang registered her second top 10 of the season with a tie for 10th finish. Harvard finished fifth in the team competition.

SURF’S UP: Simon Fraser University’s men’s and women’s teams are in Hawaii this week for two events on the Big Island. The teams are playing in the Hawaii Hilo Dennis Rose Intercollegiate followed by the Hawaii Pacific Sharks Shootout. Those tournaments conclude the fall season for both Red Leafs teams.

THAI ONE ON: Kimberley’s Jared du Toit tied for 53rd at the Asian Tour’s Black Mountain Championship in Hua Hin, Thailand. Du Toit finished the tournament at nine-under par. That was 14 shots behind winner Michael Maguire of St,. Petersburg, Fla. Du Toit, who made $7,300 US, is in the field for this week’s BNI Indonesian Masters at Royal Jakarta Golf Club.

CHIP SHOTS: Coquitlam’s A.J. Ewart warmed up for the second stage of PGA TOUR Q-school by winning the Vancouver Golf Tour’s Gatekeeper Systems Series Final at Richmond Country Club. The one-day event featured six of the top VGT players. Ewart fired a seven-under 65 to beat Jace Minni of Delta, Khan Lee of Chilliwack and Ilirian Zalli of Vancouver by two shots. He earned $1,500. . . .Nanaimo’s Matthew Wilson, a freshman at Weber State University, tied for sixth at the Utah Collegiate Shootout.