Augusta’s Scott Parel shared medalist honors in the finals of qualifying for the 2017 Champions Tour, and will be a full-time member of the tour after spending most of 2016 competing in Monday qualifiers.
Parel, a rookie on the Champions Tour in 2016, successfully qualified eight times and made a total of 15 appearances on the season, earning $336,392 to finish 50th on the money list. He placed in the top 10 in the first two Champions Tour Playoffs events, but did not qualify for the Schwab Cup finals and had to compete in the qualifying event to achieve exempt status.
“It’s great,” Parel said after tying for first in the qualifying finals to earn one of only five spots on next year’s tour. “I’m excited. I don’t have to worry about doing any Monday qualifiers and that’s the big thing. February can’t get here fast enough for me.”
Parel had at least a share of the lead after the first three rounds of the qualifying finals, which was played at Disney’s Magnolia course outside Orlando. He opened with a bogey-free score of 7-under 65 to lead outright after the first round, and shared the 36-hole lead after a second-round 72 that included a triple bogey on his second hole. He was 3-under for the day after that.
A third round 69 put Parel back in the lead after 54 holes, and he shot another 69 the final day to tie former European Ryder Cupper Phillip Price for first place at 13-under 275. Price led Parel by two after 15 holes, but Parel birdied the 16th and Price bogeyed the hole for a two-shot swing. Parel parred the first nine holes in the final round before carding an eagle on the par-5 10th and a birdie on the 11th.
John Smith of Statesboro, the 2016 Georgia Senior Open champion, tied for 31st at 288 and former UGA golfer and ex-PGA Tour member Tommy Tolles was T41 at 291. The top 30 finishers gain direct entry into the Monday qualifiers prior to next year’s Champions Tour events, which would have been a benefit for Smith.
After graduating from Georgia in 1986 (he did not play on the golf team), Parel worked in the technology field for a decade before turning pro in 1996, and spent his early years on mini-tours before joining the Web.com Tour in 2003. He was a tour member for 10 seasons, placing 35th on the money list in 2012 at the age of 47 and 31st the next year.
After losing in a playoff in Raleigh, N.C., in 2012 and winning in Wichita the next year, Parel was in position to finish in the top 25 on the Web.com money list and qualify for the PGA Tour, but did not play well enough late in either season to remain in the top 25. He competed in five PGA Tour events in his career, including two U.S. Opens, and made the cut in the 2006 BellSouth Classic at TPC Sugarloaf.
Parel turned 50 in 2015 while he was still a full time Web.com Tour member, and finished the year 76th in earnings, one spot out of the top 75 which would have put him the field for the Web.com Finals with a last shot at making it to the PGA Tour.
After playing a handful of Web.com events in early 2016, Parel concentrated on the Champions Tour the rest of the year, and made it in to almost all the tournaments in which he attempted Monday qualifying.
Parel had a trio of top-10 finishes this year – a tie for seventh in the Senior PGA Championship, a tie for 10th in the Playoffs opener in Los Angeles and a tie for sixth the next week in Richmond, Va.