Former Colorado state high school champ Tristan Rohrbaugh rides the wind en route to earning conditional status on Japan Golf Tour as he shoots low round of final day at Q-school
By Gary Baines – 12/12/2025
As Bob Dylan wrote — and has sung countless times — “the answer is blowin’ in the wind.”
At least the answer Colorado native Tristan Rohrbaugh found on Friday was blowin’ in a strong wind.
Rohrbaugh — who grew up in the Carbondale/Basalt area in western Colorado and won the Class 3A state individual title in 2013 — took advantage of 30-40 mph wind that blew during the last round of the final stage of Japan Golf Tour Q-school at Chiba Isumi Golf Club southeast of Tokyo.
While the conditions caused many competitors to struggle, Rohrbaugh vaulted 30 spots up the scoreboard — from 58th place to 28th — in the final round. And that finish gives him conditional status on the top Japanese tour in 2026 — and full status on the ACN Tour (the Japanese equivalent of the Korn Ferry Tour). The top 20 finishers on Friday earned full status on the top tour, while 21st-40th place landed conditional status.
In fact, Rohrbaugh shot the low score of the final round — out of the 88-player field — a 4-under-par 68 to post a 3-under total for the four-day event. He went 74-70-73-68, recording 16 birdies, seven bogeys and three double bogeys in the process. On Friday, he carded five birdies and one bogey in the wind.
Rohrbaugh, 29, successfully negotiated three stages of Q-school, finishing 14th in the second stage, 23rd in the third, and 28th in the final stage. In the third stage earlier this month, he advanced to final stage on the number after making a 12-foot birdie on the final hole. His putt there did a 360 and sat on the edge of the cup for a moment before falling in.
Rohrbaugh, a former Boise State golfer, had conditional status on the ACN Tour in 2025, when he made 12 starts, with a best finish of seventh place. He now lives full-time with his new wife on the Japanese island of Okinawa, where the final major battle of World War II was fought.
Besides winning a state high school title in Colorado, Rohrbaugh was the qualifying medalist for the 2016 U.S. Amateur at the same site Wyndham Clark and Colin Prater also qualified. Last year, in a casual round, Rohbaugh shot a 14-under-par 58 at Ironbridge Golf Club in Glenwood Springs. He won the 2023 Montana Open and played for three seasons in Mexico on the Gira de Golf Professional Mexicana.
Rohrbaugh is the son of Doug Rohrbaugh, the PGA professional who won the 2013 Colorado Senior Open and three Colorado PGA Professional Championships. Doug Rohrbaugh, the PGA head professional at Ironbridge from 2005-17, will be the head pro at Aspen Golf Club starting next year.
For all the scores from the final stage of Q-school for the Japan Golf Tour, 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