Luke Humphries is in Thailand attempting to qualify for an 2018 Asia Tour professional golf card.
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Humphries said after spending a year working casually and improving his game, he is determined to have a crack at qualifying for the Asia Tour.
Humphries will play his qualifying school stage one starts on January 3, at the Silky Oak Country Club course in Rayong, east of Pattaya and about two and a half hours south east of Bankok.
“There is a a maximum of 160 golfers on five courses in stage one and this will be cut substantially for the final stage of qualifying,” Humphries said. “It is getting very competitive to secure a professional tour players card with so many skilled golfers from around the world trying for a place on the tour.
“It is extremely difficult to make it through qualifying and it is about producing consistently good results.”
The other courses where golfers will be trying to make the stage one cut are: Rayong Green Valley Country Club, St. Andrews 2000 and Windsor Park and Golf Club (Course A & B).
Humphries has been playing golf since he was 7-years-old starting, like Brett Ogle at Tully Park the he moved to Goulburn Golf Club. At age 10 he had the best nett score of any local junior in the Brett Ogle Junior Classic and he won the Brett Ogle autographed golf bag for his efforts and was placed fourth in the 13 years and under division.
Now 19 years since he started playing, Humphries is having a crack at the two stage stroke play Asian Tour qualifying school.
The first qualifying stage is 72 holes scheduled for January 3-6 with practice rounds on January 1 and 2.
The starting field will play two rounds and after 36 holes, the field will be cut to the leading 80 and ties who will play a further two rounds. Where the starting field is less than 100, the field will be cut to two-thirds of the starting field.
The number of players qualifying to proceed to the final stage will be announced during the tournament week.
Players tied for the final qualifying place score will proceed to the final stage.
The final qualifying is over 90 holes from January 10-14 with practice on January 8 and 9 and will be conducted on Rayong Green Valley Country Club and St. Andrews 2000.
This final qualifying stage will start with a maximum field of about 264 players who after two rounds (36 holes) will be cut to the leading 140 players (+ties) who will then play a further two rounds. The field will be cut to the leading 70 players (+ ties) who will play the final round. At the conclusion of this the top 35 (+ties) will be ranked accordingly for the 2018 season.
Humphries held an Australian PGA tour card in 2014-16 and a China Tour card in 2015 where he played 13 events.