PONTE VEDRA, Fla. — Emma Springer lifted her 1-year-old Annie as if it were Simba from “The Lion King,” and smiled, saying, “Baby! We’re celebrating tonight, and you don’t know why!”
Hayden Springer, the husband of Springer’s daughter, is a first-time PGA Tour player. The 26-year old, who competed on the PGA Tour Canada during this season, had a 1-under 69 on Monday at Dye’s Valley, TPC Sawgrass. This was enough for him to finish 8-under 272, T-4, and earn one out of five PGA Tour Cards for the 2024 Season.
The final stage of 2023 PGA Tour Q-School will be the first since 2012 that tour cards are on the line. The top 40 finishers, including ties, are exempt from multiple reshuffles for the 2024 Korn Ferry Tour. This means they will receive between 8 and 12 starts depending on where they finish. The next 20 finishers, including ties, are exempt from the Latin America Swing for the 2024 PGA Tour Americas Season in addition to their conditional Korn Ferry Tour Status. All other finishers who did not fall into the categories above were granted conditional membership to both the PGA Tour Americas and Korn Ferry Tour for 2024.
Springer, who won the Fortinet Cup of the 2023 PGA Tour Canada, entered the week as a full Korn Ferry Tour member. He’s now joining Mexico’s Raul Perera, Trace Crowe Jr. and Harrison Endycott, along with Blace Hale Jr.
Springer’s story is all the more amazing because Sage, his oldest daughter died just a little over a week ago at age three. Trisomy 18 was diagnosed prenatally, a developmental disorder caused by an extra chromosome.
Hayden Springer has a great moment
Sage, a 3-year-old girl, died on Nov. 13 after suffering from Trisomy 18
Springer will be playing on the PGA TOUR in just a few months. https://t.co/QcdmHajA33 pic.twitter.com/lNObh2M2lk
— PGA TOUR December 18, 2020
Springer stated that he had Sage in mind several times throughout the final round.
He said, “It is happy thoughts.” It’s one of those things I think about, and I think of her smile. It’s like I can close my eyes, think of her smiling and that brings me back to neutral.
Emma, Springer’s wife, was on the 18th green with Annie in a stroller. When Annie started crying Emma took her away. Hayden’s father took over to allow Emma, who was on the women’s team at Texas Tech at the time, to witness Hayden seal the deal at 18 with a two-putt par. Springer was in a good position to finish among the top five after three birdies on his front nine. He made bogeys on Nos. The 11th and 12th holes were a little more difficult. He was able to get back on track with a birdie at par-3 14 .
He said, “Bouncing forward and making a birdie got me into it. Got me back on track.”
He drove into the water and made bogey at 17, so he had to avoid the water from the tee by 18. His father asked, “Can you make this any harder?”
Springer began playing U.S. Kids events at age 8. Kids events begin at the age of 8. It’s as if you didn’t know when the day would come but today it is.
The four new PGA Tour members are described below.
