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PGA Tour developing draft program for top college golfers

Shane Bevel / NCAA Photos / Getty

The PGA Tour is developing a draft program that will provide top college golfers access to its tours, according to Golfweek's Brentley Romine.

The program "will identify, prepare, and transition top collegiate golfers to professional golf," the PGA Tour said in a statement, noting the system will "be designed to reward season-long collegiate play with varying levels of playing access to tours operated under the PGA Tour umbrella while upholding the principles and virtues of collegiate athletics."

In simpler terms, the program will give the best college players status on one of the five tours operated by the PGA Tour, including its main circuit.

A timetable for the program's implementation isn't known, and neither are the final details, though one Tour official with knowledge of the project called it "unprecedented."

However, the program will be designed to incentivize players to stay in school.

"If a freshman was to turn pro, are they going to be eligible for this program? Likely not," the Tour official said.

The criteria that will determine which players receive Tour cards is still in the works, Romine reports, and will be more complicated than simply using the World Amateur Golf Rankings.

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