The idea came from Earl Stewart, a PGA pro, in 1963. This wasn’t long before the PGA Tour split from the PGA of America, and came at a time when the PGA’s touring professionals, Arnold Palmer chief among them, were beginning to command more attention and money. As the Tour grew, Stewart and many others recognized that there was a need for a streamlined path for players to actually reach the tour. At that point, it was up to local sections to screen their best players, and that “qualification” process could vary, and was not always the play-based meritocracy it should have been. When Stewart suggested an annual qualifying tournament, the idea caught on and was implemented by 1965.

Since then, “Q School” (which used to involve actual lectures on etiquette, rules, and various other topics, hence the word “school”) has gone through many incarnations, and has been influenced by changes in the greater game. For several years at the start, there were two Q Schools each year, one in the spring and one in the fall, and that’s because getting your card there just meant becoming one of the Tour’s “rabbits”—the traveling pros who were allowed to Monday qualify each week, and whose aim was to make the top 60 in order to become full status members. That ended in ’82 when Deane Beman began the era of the fully exempt Tour. When the Ben Hogan Tour (now the Korn Ferry Tour) began in 1990, it offered a second, season-long path to the Tour for pros and reduced the number of cards given out at Q School. In 2012, Q School became a path to the Korn Ferry Tour only, and that lasted until 2023, when they reverted to giving Tour cards, albeit just five of them.

Doug Benc

MORE: The story of a Q School DQ for the ages

Throughout that history, the tournament has been ripe with drama, and there’s no getting around the fact that much of the drama ended in heartbreak. When people are fighting for their competitive lives, the stakes are as high as they get, and even today players like Scottie Scheffler remember Q School as the most nervous moments of their professional lives. Maybe Steve Pate said it best when he told John Feinstein that when Tour players get together, they don’t tell stories about the majors…they tell stories about Q School.

On this week’s Local Knowledge podcast, we dig into the history of Q School, and unearth some of the great triumphs and heartbreaks from an institution that is now 60 years old, and has both made and broken professional golfers for every second of its existence. Listen below, or wherever you get your podcasts.

MORE: How I actually (kind of) saved the Tour Championship at East Lake. You’re welcome.

This article was originally published on golfdigest.com