Self-admittedly, John Greco may not have the natural talent and ‘pedigree’ to be a PGA Tour player, but he certainly has the passion and spirit to make it. After years of struggles, the 30-year-old golfer may have booked his place into the big leagues. The next few hours will determine whether he finally makes it or not.
via Reuters
For now, Greco is going to enter the last day of the Final Stage at T4 and has set himself up to earn a PGA Tour card. If the Rochester local is able to maintain his position at the end of the day, he, along with 3 other promising talents, will receive their PGA Tour cards.
John Greco, who goes by @champagnejohnnie, spoke about his journey so far in an Instagram post shared by @kornferrytour and @pgatour. The carousel included an interview with Greco as he started the conversation by talking about his experience in the Q-School so far.
“I had a lot of fun. Honestly, I think a lot of people probably were stressing yesterday, but I mean, you know you’re playing Final Stage Q-School and it’s blowing 40 and everybody’s falling apart. That sounds like fun to me,” Greco said as he spoke about the environment in the Final Stage event. Talking about his struggles at the beginning, he further stated how he had tried a few sports as a junior as golf fell on the costlier spectrum for his family.
He also mentioned, “Thankfully, like we had Youth on Course once I found that in high school, that was a big part of being able to play more golf consistently,” while indicating how his father originally felt about one round of golf being so expensive that he could only afford to visit there once a month.
Discussing his initial days in golf, John Greco said, “I remember after my freshman year of high school, I literally had like these beginner clubs, like they were half hybrids,” as he shared how he worked a job in the summer to buy better clubs. Presumably, a big fan of the GOAT, Tiger Woods, he mentioned how he could “spot the Tiger Woods Victory Red blades with the Tiger Woods logo on it because Tiger’s the man,” while stating that he was only 15 at that time.
Recollecting how he made up his mind to pursue golf, he said, “And that’s when also I saw Tiger Woods in the U.S. Open at Pebble. So that was probably like; probably from then was when I was like, ‘okay, golf’s it, golf’s it, I want to do that.” Coming back to the struggles, Greco mentioned how despite all the hard work his parents did, pursuing a career in golf was just very expensive. He also talked about how they were not in the loop of the options they had available to get discounts for junior players and it was too late by the time they learned about it.
He then went on to give a glimpse of his s𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁 set as he said, “I don’t have the pedigree that plenty of other guys have,” while discussing how, at this stage, everyone was given an equal opportunity, and that allowed Greco to shine after years of hard work.
So what is actually going on in the Final Stage event of the Q-School qualifications? Let’s find out.
What will John Greco need to do to confirm his qualification?
After three rounds of the event, John Greco is sitting at -3, 3 strokes behind the top of the table. The board is led by Matthew Riedel who has had a great tournament with all round below par. He is tied with Alistair Docherty at the top. Docherty started the event with a score of 1-over par 71 but has since hit 66 and 67 in the following rounds to match Riedel’s score.
When we compare that to John Greco’s rounds, he ended the first two days on par, however, three birdies on Saturday helped him climb up the leaderboard to T4. If Greco is able to replicate his performance from round 3, then there is no doubt that he will get his PGA Tour card by the end of the day.
Do you think John Greco will be able to achieve his dream and join the 2025 PGA Tour season? Share your views in the comments section.
