Gove receives conditional status for 2024 PGA Champions Tour
CORRECTION: In the Dec. 13 edition of the Daily Bee, it was reported that Sandpoint's Jeff Gove had qualified for the 2024 PGA Champions Tour. Although we wish that to be true, only the top 5 golfers from the final qualifying stage qualified in full. Gove, who finished 12th, received conditional status for finishing amongst the top 20, which means he can compete in a Monday Qualifier (PGA Championship Tour Qualifying Tournament) without having to compete in a pre-qualifying round.
"I'm highly unlikely to get into any tournaments on that," Gove said in reference to his conditional status. "I basically have the same status as I did last year ... I am exempt through the pre-qualifying round, so I am a conditional member of the Champions Tour, but I am not going to get into any tournaments with the number I have. I was very close, but I did not technically achieve the goal I was shooting for."
In the most recent final qualifying stage, Gove needed to be near perfect in order to reach conditional status. Well, he was perfect and then some. Gove finished his final round six under par with six birdies (11 under overall), which moved him up 16 spots into a tie for 12th, good enough to qualify as a conditional member of the champions tour. He was just two strokes away from the top five golfers.
The final qualifying stage was held Dec. 5-8 at the TPC Scottsdale, northeast of Phoenix, and is part of the Tournament Players Club network of golf courses operated by the PGA Tour. Gove finished under par in three out four rounds on the 7,115-yard, 71-par course. His rounds, in order, were 73, 68, 67, 65 over the four-day tournament. If not for a double bogey, and a bogey on holes 17 and 18 in round one, Gove would have been well under par in all four rounds.
In the first stage/pre-qualifying rounds for the 2024 PGA Champions Tour, Gove competed at the Soboba Springs Golf Course in San Jacinto, Calif., held Nov. 28-Dec. 1. Over four rounds, Gove finished three under par, shooting a consistent 71, 72, 72, 70 on the 72-par course and tied for sixth place.
Last year, Gove tried to fully qualify three times for tournaments on the tour and succeeded twice by finishing amongst the top three out of roughly 60 golfers at different Monday Qualifiers.
"This year I will probably try and do the same thing," Gove said. "Hopefully I'll play at the U.S. Senior Open again and in some other tournaments. You never know though. If I got hot and played well, then I could continue, or if I won a tournament, then I'd be automatically on the Champions Tour for a year."
Gove said he is going to try and place more this year and play some more if he is able to.
"My goal for next year at this time would be to go to this tournament again and hopefully get one of those five qualifying spots for 2025," Gove said. "Tournament golf is still something I love to do ... It's an honor to almost make it and it's a really tough thing to try and do. I want to keep plugging away and hopefully I'll get my chance."