Golf does not get much more stressful than at Q-School where golfers fight it out to get that elusive tour card, but Harrison Frazar, winless after 300 US Tour starts, felt a very different type of pressure after he rolled in his seventh straight birdie on the 17th hole of the Nicklaus Tournament course at PGA West – he needed only par on the final hole to post a 59 and join the elite ‘break 60 club’. What followed was a perfect drive onto the fairway, a wedge to the green and two putts for him to become only the second player to shoot a 59 at Q-School. Frazar followed it up the next day with a 69 to increase his lead to five strokes with one round to go until he claims his tour card.

Meanwhile Wie, who is still a student at Stanford, surprised her critics by earning her LPGA Tour card, closing with a two-over-par 74 and a total of 12-under 348 to finish tied for seventh in the qualifying tournament. “It feels like a clean slate, a new beginning, and I finally feel like I really earned it,” she said. I have never exactly been a fan of Wie, but maybe she has finally accepted that there are no short cuts to success. Of course, she needed her LPGA Tour card now more than ever, as her sponsors’ exemption act was beginning to wear thin at age 19.

Also hard at work this weekend was local lass Ashleigh Simon who finished T17 in Q-School. In a qualifying tournament where one or two shots can make the difference between a year on tour or hacking away at it until next year (only the top 20 receive their cards), Ash held her nerve, closing with a final-round 68, the lowest score carded on the day.