Arizona TOUR Pro Michael Allen "King of Q-School” Gladly Leaves Throne

Michael Allen walked out of the clubhouse at Grayhawk Golf Club Sunday afternoon with a smile on his face and his Harley-Davidson leather jacket unzipped to the cool fall breeze. The 48-year-old longtime Scottsdale resident didn’t look like a guy who had turned an opening round 63 and a two-shot lead for the $900,000 first prize at the Fry’s Electronics Open into a tie for 55th and a check for a little more than 10-grand. He was still disappointed in his final round 78, mind you, but Michael Allen’s always seemed like a “big picture” guy, and the big picture still had his family, a good bottle of wine and his Harley in it, and most importantly, a secure job for 2008.

That last part had always been the missing link to professional happiness in Allen’s life, but, for once, “I can actually take a vacation when my kids have a vacation. We usually go to Hawaii and my kids have to miss a week of school because I've got TOUR School when they are off. So, you know, it will be nice to not have that.”

TOUR School, as Allen calls it, is the PGA TOUR’s Qualifying School (Q-School to many). It is a late autumn grind that begins with hundreds of the best players you’ve never heard of and runs them through a three-stage meat grinder, the final test coming in a six-round tournament that has as its major prize, for the top 25 finishers, a membership card on the TOUR for the following year. Nobody’s won more money at Q-School than Allen, but that’s not necessarily an honor, because it means he’s probably been there more often than anyone else. Thirteen times he’s made it to the Q-School finals, a feat in itself. And late in 2006, he got his card for a record ninth time. That high-wire act got him on the TOUR again in ’07, where he was floundering along in 154th place on the money list when the TOUR’s Fall Series began. Allen knew this was his last, best hope of getting to take the family vacation this fall instead of putting for an hour-and-a-half a day getting ready for Q-School again.

On a breezy Indian-summer day in late September in upstate New York, at the Oneida Indian-owned Atunyote Golf Club, Allen shot the best round of the day, a 4-under-par 68 and rallied to finish second at the Turning Stone Resort Championship. He was still looking for his first win on TOUR, but he might have been a bigger winner than anyone at the Resort’s casino tables that week, rising from 154th to 99th on the money list, securing his card for ’08.

“In a way I won the tournament already just finishing second,” he said. “Because for me that was enormous. I'm going to faint in just a little bit. (Laughter from cynical press in media center).”

But would he miss Q-School? “It's got to be part of my life and it's what I'm good at it seems like. Maybe I should play more tournaments like this where I feel like its TOUR School, because when I go to TOUR School I just try not to make any mistakes, and I've had some better weeks doing that. Maybe I'd better rethink my strategy a little bit. I'm always trying to be like Tiger, you know, and I'm not.”

But Michael Allen is one of those guys who “gets it”. He understands how fortunate he is to be able to make a living doing what he loves to do, and all those trips to Q-School keep him from ever taking any of it for granted, even as he closes in on the doorstep of the Champions Tour he can join in early ’09.

“It had gotten to the point where TOUR School was getting so hard,” he said. “There are only 25 spots now, and so many good players. Guys used to choke coming in the last day or two and they don't anymore. This gives me an extra month or two off where normally I'm training for two or three weeks to get ready for that week, or two weeks a lot of times. So it's a real benefit for me, my health, my sanity.”

And it allowed all of his Valley friends to enjoy the Fry’s Electronics Open without the concerns for his future. His freewheeling opening 63 was witnessed by dozens of friends from Scottsdale and his home club, Mesa Country Club. The fact that they couldn’t all show up at 7am the next morning might have made a difference in his second round 71. Some had to work, and in Allen’s words, “some just couldn’t make it up this morning, either.” Michael Allen’s life is, and always has been, one filled with friends.

While still basking in the glow of securing his immediate future, Michael knows that future is always shaky at best.

“The last few weeks when things didn't go well, it was easy to say, okay, oh, well. It didn't hurt my gut like it usually does because I'm usually grinding so much. Having said that, I also have to get myself back to the point where it is important to not let myself make a bogey and play a little more conservative, because that's obviously the way I play best.”

“Maybe that's the lesson I need to get out of Turning Stone and some of my success I have when I'm playing at TOUR School. So I'm trying to turn that over and make that a part of my game out here, too.”

Maybe 2008 is the year for that one last goal to be reached after a second career runner-up finish. “If I can get one spot better, that’s the one thing I’ve always wanted to do.”