Four-spot drama punctuated by a Tour debut

Reporting from Milan, Illinois

Monday, June 30, 2025

The four-spot Monday qualifier – General Qualifying, to use the formal term employed by the PGA Tour – is what makes the regular tour open. In a four-spot, any pro, or any low-indexed amateur, can tee it up across 18 holes with a shot at a place in big-time golf in the same field as the circuit’s regulars.

One with no status must play in a pre-qualifier first, and there are fees, of course, but if your pre-qualifying score advances you and the payments clear, there you are on the first (or 10th) tee. Each week there’s a regular tournament, wanna-bes, used to-bes and sundry other culprits follow the sun trying to make that week’s field. It also happens on the Korn Ferry Tour, and the Champions circuit. There’s a similar system on the LPGA trail.

Monday’s designated location for joy, heartbreak and trunk-slamming was Pinnacle Country Club, a hilly and tree-filled private course a few miles south of Quad Cities International Airport, from which a charter jet will leave Sunday night for Scotland and the British Open.

The odds that one of Monday’s four qualifiers are on that jet is about the same as winning Powerball, but people play that all day long, and golfers with stylish swings keep appearing at the first tee every Monday.

There were 96 starters at Pinnacle, all of them with pedigree and the belief that Monday would be their day. For many, it had been in the past.

Take Sean O’Hair, for instance. He won the Deere in 2005, but Past Champion status is so far down the exemption criteria on the PGA Tour, he teed it up at Pinnacle. The result: a ho-hum 3-under 69, all three birdies on par 5s.

How about Ian Gilligan, who needed 11 extra holes last year to capture the Western Amateur championship? His 1-under 71 didn’t even sniff contention. 

Then there’s newly-newly-minted pro Ben Sluzas of Lockport, who won three big state junior titles before a four-year career at Northern Illinois. He was even par through 11 holes, then quadruple-bogeyed the par-4 third. That started a cascade of trouble that brought him in at 8-over 80.

Blades Brown was like Sluzas in high school in Nashville, plus set the stroke-play record for U.S. Amateur qualifying at age 16, taking down Bobby Jones’ old mark. That and other achievements convinced him to skip college and turn pro. He fired a splendid 4-under-par 68 and was down the highway before lunch.

A final example: Patrick Flavin of Highwood, a tourist on the PGA Americas circuit – South America in the spring, Canada now – was 3-under through seven holes, then bogeyed three holes, then birdied three of his last four, including the home hole, to finish at 3-under 69.

The four who succeeded and will be chasing their dream at TPC Deere Run? Josh Radcliff of Grapevine, Tex., the 1,718th-ranked player in the Official World Golf Ranking, whose morning 9-under 63 led the way, Petr Hruby of Seattle and Zack Fischer of Benton, Ark., whose 64s were authored in the morning (Fischer eagled the 18th to set his score), and Carson Herron, who survived a three-way playoff with Michael Johnson and Blake Mcshea by wedging a downhill 153-yard tee shot on the third playoff hole – Pinnacle’s 15th – to a foot for a birdie to advance.

Herron should be a familiar name. His father Tim was a regular on the circuit for decades. Herron the younger turned pro three weeks ago and has played in two lower-level tournaments. This was his first Monday four-spot and he made it, two holes after watching Johnson chip-in for a birdie 5 on the first to extend the playoff.

“You don’t really expect it but that’s what happens in playoffs,” Herron said. “Crazy stuff happens, but you move on with it.

“On the third hole, I was pretty amped up so hit wedge. I’d been short and right before, so I made a good, committed swing.”

He heard from dad soon after his birdie fell.

“He gave me a little call,” Herron said. “I just hope he’s excited and proud of me. I’m really excited. You don’t really expect it. I was just trying to get experience.”

He’ll get a week full now.

Around Pinnacle

Austin Cook didn’t show up for his 12:40 p.m. tee time for the best possible reason. He got a spot in the tournament when Davis Riley withdrew. … Sluzas turned pro a few weeks ago and tied Bryce Emory for first with a 4-under in an Illinois PGA Open Series tournament at Hinsdale, earning $1,075, his second check as a pro. Emory scored 3-under 69 at Pinnacle.

– Tim Cronin