6 players with significant Colorado ties set to tee it up in final stage of PGA Tour/KFT Q-school; Becca Huffer, Sabrina Iqbal fall short in bid for 2026 LPGA Tour cards at final stage of Q-Series
By Gary Baines – 12/9/2025
Some hope to earn exempt spots on the PGA or Korn Ferry Tour for the first time. Others would like to regain regular status on one or the other.
Either way, much is on the line for competitors when the final stage of PGA Tour/Korn Ferry Tour Q-school is held Thursday through Sunday in Ponte Vedra, Fla.
A total of 176 players will tee it up, playing two rounds each at Dye’s Valley Course at TPC Sawgrass and Sawgrass Country Club. After four rounds, the top five finishers — with ties for fifth being played off — will earn 2026 PGA Tour cards. Then the next 40 finishers and ties will land some exempt status on the 2026 Korn Ferry Tour. The rest of the competitors earn conditional KFT status — which can end up resulting in anything from zero KFT starts next year to playing regularly on that circuit, depending on a number of factors — plus regular status on PGA Tour Americas.
Six players with significant Colorado ties will tee it up starting Thursday. Here they are, listed alphabetically:
— Dan Erickson, a former regular at TPC Colorado who competed on the DP World Tour and the HotelPlanner Tour in 2025.
— Littleton native and Regis Jesuit High School and University of Denver graduate Chris Korte.
— Tyler McCumber, a former Lyons resident.
— Former University of Colorado golfer Jeremy Paul.
— Dillon Stewart of Fort Collins.
— Air Force Academy graduate and former Broomfield resident Kyle Westmoreland.
Paul played on the PGA Tour in 2025 as a rookie, finishing 135th in the FedExCup Fall standings. That gives him conditional PGA Tour status for 2026, but he has a chance to improve his standing through the final stage of Q-school. He’s already guaranteed fully exempt on the 2026 Korn Ferry Tour.
Westmoreland owned a PGA Tour card in the 2022-23 season, and has been a KFT regular in 2022, ’24 and ’25.
McCumber, son of 10-time PGA Tour winner Mark McCumber, has played in 61 PGA Tour events, but has undergone three major surgeries — two on hips and one on a shoulder — in recent years. He’s playing on a major medical extension, with 13 PGA Tour starts remaining on that extension.
Korte and Stewart — both winners of CGA amateur “majors” — and Erickson made it to the final stage of Q-school thanks to their performances in stage 2 last week. Korte also played in the final stage last year. Stewart won an event on PGA Tour Americas this season and fell two spots shy on the final season-long point standings of earning KFT status. (The top 10 on the points list landed KFT cards.)
The number of 2026 KFT starts for those who end up with conditional status will vary widely, depending on many factors, including status earned previously, where a player finishes among the “conditionals” and how a player performs when he does get a start. Some with conditional status, and little else previously earned, may get few or no KFT starts next season. Others may get into a decent number of KFT tournaments. All that’s based on what’s happened to “conditionals” in recent years.
For instance, Korte finished 117th in the final stage last year, but the only KFT start he got in 2025 — at The Ascendant presented by Blue at TPC Colorado — came after Monday qualifying.
The bottom line is, while it’s technically true that those who have made it to the final stage will have at least some KFT status the next year, that can be a bit misleading depending on a given individual’s situation. That leaves some players with much more on the line at the final stage than others.
Also among those set to compete this week in Ponte Vedra are Cameron Champ, Russell Knox, Adam Hadwin and Camilo Villegas — four of the 15 PGA Tour winners in the field.
For the entire field for the final stage of Q-school, CLICK HERE.
— Meanwhile in the final stage of LPGA Q-Series, Becca Huffer of Monument fell short in her bid to earn LPGA Tour status for the third time.
Huffer, a two-time Colorado Women’s Open champion, and former University of Colorado golfer Sabrina Iqbal wrapped up the fourth and final round of the weather-shortened event on Tuesday in Mobile, Ala. The tournament originally was scheduled for five rounds, but was switched to 72 holes because of multiple weather interruptions.
The top 25 finishers and ties earn 2026 LPGA Tour cards, while the rest of the field will have Epson Tour status. Huffer placed 63rdon Tuesday and Iqbal 100th.
Huffer posted scores of 72-75-74-68 for a 3-over-par total, which left her eightstrokes out of the top 25. Iqbal went 73-78-75-70 to check in at 10 over par.
The field originally featured 116 competitors.
For all the scores from the final stage of Q-Series, CLICK HERE.
About the Writer: Gary Baines has covered golf in Colorado continuously since 1983. He was a sports writer at the Daily Camera newspaper in Boulder, then the sports editor there, and has written regularly for ColoradoGolf.org since 2009. The University of Colorado Evans Scholar alum was inducted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame in 2022. He owns and operates ColoradoGolfJournal.com