Capan, Hitchner, Leach and VanArragon Come Up Short at Final Stage of PGA Tour Q-School

  PONTE VEDRA, Fla. – With the 2026 season arriving shortly after the new year, a total of five spots remained on the line Sunday at the conclusion of the Final Stage of 2026 PGA Tour Q-School presented by Korn Ferry at TPC Sawgrass.

Minnesotan Frankie Capan III led a total of four local players at the final stop last week, as Capan posted a final-round 71 Sunday, falling eight spots on the leaderboard to finish tied for 20th at 7-under 273.

Capan, 26, earned his Tour card for the 2025 season by placing inside the top-30 of the Korn Ferry Tour points list during the 2024 season.

He will earn full Korn Ferry Status for the upcoming season and will be subject to the third reorder of the 2026 season.

This season, Capan made 10 cuts in 28 starts, helped by a late-season push that saw him earn a pair of top-10 finishes to begin the PGA Tour’s fall schedule.

He finished sixth at the Sanderson Farms Championship before his best individual performance of the season, a third-place finish, at the Butterfield Bermuda Championship.

Capan, formerly of North Oaks, Minn., and winner of the 2020 Minnesota Golf Association Amateur Championship at Edina Country Club before finishing his college career at Florida Gulf Coast University, joined forces with PGA Tour Canada alum Jake Knapp to place third at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans.

During his rookie campaign in 2025, Capan earned more than $1.1 million in winnings.

Former Blake School standout and 2021 MGA Amateur champion, Derek Hitchner, slipped 19 spots on the final day Sunday, shooting 3-under 277 to place 54th at the Final Stage.

Hitchner, 26, who played his collegiate golf at Pepperdine University, locked up his exempt status on the Korn Ferry Tour for 2026 after finishing sixth in the PGA Tour Americas points standings.

Following a frustrating start to the 2025 season, Hitchner notched three top-10 finishes over the final four events of the season, including back-to-back runner-up finishes at the CRMC Championship presented by Northern Pacific Center in Brainerd, Minn., and the ATB Classic two weeks later.

With his sixth-place finish at the season finale Fortinet Cup Championship in late September, Hitchner secured his promotion to the Korn Ferry Tour.

Tyler Leach, winner of the 2025 Minnesota State Open at Rochester Golf and Country Club in July, fired a final-round 70 Sunday to place tied for 104th at 2-over 282.

The Spring Valley, Wis., native and former Marquette University golfer will earn full exempt status on the PGA Tour Americas for the 2026 season.

Sitting three shots outside the cut on the final day two weeks ago at Starr Pass in Tucson, Ariz., Leach rattled off seven birdies over his final nine holes to earn medalist honors and advance to the final round of qualifying.

Leach, 26, tallied a final-round 66 in July, fending off the University of Minnesota’s Jack Wetzel to earn a two-stroke victory at the Minnesota State Open for the first professional victory of his career.

Advancing to Final Stage for the second consecutive season, former Blaine High School standout Caleb VanArragon looked to improve his position for the 2026 season before carding a final-round 3-over 73 Sunday to finish tied for 111th at 3-over 283.

Exempt on the Korn Ferry Tour for the 2025 season, VanArragon will retain his full status again for the 2026 season after placing 56th in the standings in October.

During his first full season on the Korn Ferry Tour, VanArragon made 13 cuts in 25 events, while earning a trio of top-10 finishes to earn more than $205,000 for the year. His best finish came at the Simmons Bank Open for the Snedeker Foundation in September when he placed tied for fourth.

VanArragon, 24, authored one of the best seasons of amateur golf in Minnesota during the 2023 season when he won both the Minnesota State Open and MGA Amateur Championship.

He holds the Valparaiso University single season stroke average record of 69.62 and sits second in program history with a career scoring average of 71.24.

Canadian A.J. Ewart bookended rounds of 66 at the 72-hole event to earn medalist honors by carding a 14-under 266 to earn his Tour card for the first time.

Ewart, 26, finished No. 15 on the PGA Tour Americas points list in 2025 to earn his exemption into the Second Stage of qualifying.

He made 22 starts on the PGA Tour Americas, formerly the PGA Tour Canada, and earned one victory in 2024 at the Elk Ridge Saskatchewan Open presented by Lake Country Co-op.

The former Barry University alum, who earned the Jack Nicholas Award in 2022 for the NCAA Division II Player of the Year, becomes the second PGA Tour America player in a matter of months to skip the Korn Ferry Tour altogether after Fortinet Cup champion Michael Brennan earned his PGA Tour card by winning the Bank of Utah Championship in October.

PGA Tour journeyman and fellow Canadian Adam Svensson retained his exempt status on Tour after finishing No. 167 in the FedEx Cup standings.

Svensson carded a final-round 66 to finish tied for second with Argentinian Alejandro Tosti, 36-year-old Columbian Marcelo Rozo, who’ll make his PGA Tour rookie debut when the season begins next month, and Dylan Wu, who birdie the first playoff hole Sunday to defeat Canadian Ben Silverman for the final qualifying spot.

The 2026 PGA Tour season kicks off Jan. 15-18 at the Sony Open at Waialae Country Club in Honolulu.