Few pro golfers have had as wild a past year as Will Chandler. While a PGA Tour card and high FedEx Cup ranking go a long way in guaranteed starts, that’s not the case for a massive group of pros.
Take Chandler, for example. The former Georgia golfer turned pro in 2021 and struggled to gain any traction on the top tours. That meant he was forced to attempt to Monday-qualify as much as possible, which is essentially one of the hardest things to do in the game. And yet he did it five times on the Korn Ferry Tour last season, which earned him enough points to get conditional status on that tour for 2025.
But he did one better, getting through PGA Tour Q-School to earn his PGA Tour card for this season.
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His first two starts didn’t go well — two missed cuts — but he Monday-qualified for the WM Phoenix Open to land a spot in the field.
The WM Phoenix Open has long been known as one of the most difficult and competitive among the Monday qualifiers on the PGA Tour.
“I was swinging well and I played aggressive, as you should in a Monday, and took on some flags and hit driver a lot,” Chandler said on this week’s episode of GOLF’s Subpar podcast. “Probably a little more aggressive than a four-day event. When I finished, I was like, oh, I don’t know if that is going to hold up. You never know in those things.”
Chandler finished seven under at Pinnacle Peak Country Club, but there were still some groups out on the course. He figured someone would come in at eight under and he’d maybe get a spot in a playoff at best. He waited and hit balls and rolled putts for about an hour. Then he found out: He was in.
His week got better, too. He shot four consecutive rounds in the 60s and played the final day in the fourth-to-last group alongside World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler and Cameron Young. Chandler shot 66 for the low round in that threesome and vaulted into a tie for sixth — and took home a $310,500 paycheck.
He also might be the answer to an obscure trivia question down the road. When the PGA Tour’s latest batch of changes go into effect in 2026, the WM Phoenix Open will be one of the events reduced from 132 players to 120, and those 120-player fields will no longer have Monday qualifiers.
A tradition in Phoenix that started in 1948 will be over. But one of the final men to Monday-qualify earned a top-10 out of his opportunity.
“I’m leaving a little happier than I did my first two events,” Chandler said after his final round in Phoenix. “I’m definitely pleased with the week, but I’m excited to get back to work and get home. I have a lot I can improve on for sure.”
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