With a $20 million purse and a $3.6 million first-place prize, the WM Phoenix Open, the first full-field designated event of 2023, is brimming with anticipation. And it’s not just fans clamoring to get on the property at TPC Scottsdale.
The event will be without Adam Scott and Will Zalatoris but every other big name on the PGA Tour will be teeing it up.
For many others, the desire to get in the field has reached unprecedented levels, as last-minute scrambling has been taking place all week around the Phoenix area with eight pre-qualifiers and an upcoming Monday qualifier.
It’s the second year there were eight pre-qualifiers and each one sold out. That’s right, 78 golfers paid $250 to fill up each of the 624 spots at eight golf courses around town. And the competition was fierce.
“I don’t know if you saw the scores but it was ridiculous,” said Bill Ibrahim of the Southwest Section PGA, which runs all the qualifiers. “There was a guy who shot a bogey-free 64 and didn’t get through. It’s insane.”
The PGA Tour sets the criteria for advancing out of the pre-qualifiers and it was determined with eight of them that only the top two and ties from each would advance.
Berk Harvey of San Jose posted the best score of the week with a 62 at a City of Phoenix municipal golf course called Aguila. George Markham of Phoenix and Sudarshan Yellamaraju of Ontario, Canada, each shot 63s at Aguila to advance. Jared du Toit of Scottsdale topped his pre-qualifier with a 64 at Western Skies Golf Course in the suburb of Gilbert. The highest advancing score was a 67, shot by five players at the 500 Club in Glendale.
Over the next week, more than 700 golfers will compete for the final three spots in the @WMPhoenixOpen. It’s a numbers game. And the grind, of chasing a life on Tour. @SWSectionPGA pic.twitter.com/OrSZ9BDvJW
— Nick King (@NickKingSports) February 1, 2023
In all, 26 golfers finished top two or ties and have punched their tickets to Monday. Of those 26, two are amateurs: Joe Neuheisel of Scottsdale (the son of former Colorado, Washington and UCLA football coach Rick Neuheisel) and Leon Acikalin of Phoenix. Amateurs need a handicap of 2 or lower to get in the pre-qualifier.
As of mid-day Friday, there were 118 golfers in the Monday qualifier, according to Ibrahim, who said the field could swell in the next few days. With that many golfers though, the Monday qualifier likely won’t finish until Tuesday. Any frost delay would disrupt timing and…
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