Twenty PGA Tour cards will be handed out Sunday at the season-ending Korn Ferry Tour Championship in Virginia. It will be a tense weekend for many, but (ultimately) not for Alistair Docherty.
Docherty secured his long-awaited PGA Tour card last month, and is one of 13 players competing this week who have already locked up a spot on the big tour next season. Seven cards are still dealt.
It has not been an easy road to the PGA Tour for Docherty, who has had many close calls over the years and is just now, at the age of 32, getting his first shot at the top tour. He joined this week Subpar podcast to talk about his journey.
Docherty has made nearly 100 Korn Ferry Tour starts in his six on the PGA Tour. He just missed qualifying for the PGA Tour two years ago when he finished two places out of a place in the Korn Ferry Tour Championship (he was 32nd, and 30 received cards then). And two months later he was one shot shy of qualifying via PGA Tour Q-School.
“It was tough at the time; I kind of wanted to blame other people,” Docherty said in Subpar. “I had (a Tour card) at my fingertips in the last stage of Q-School and I guess I hit a 9-iron with a lot of adrenaline from 165 yards and flew the green. So you learn from it, you try to improve every day, but in my mind I was trying to blame all these other people for having a little dark.
But Docherty put together a strong 2026. Tied for second in his second event of the season in the Bahamas and won the Argentina Open three games later (which earned him a spot in the Open Championship, where he missed the cut). He later added another second place finish at the Pinnacle Bank Championship in August when he lost in a playoff.
He found out before the Simmons Bank Open for the Snedeker Foundation that he had earned his card for 2026, then promptly missed his next two cuts.
“I’m a little behind,” he said, laughing. “It was a big sigh of relief, he took his foot off the gas pedal and of course he didn’t play that well the last few weeks, but it’s really nice to have a Tour card and I’m getting ready for next year.”
You can listen to the full interview with Docherty hereor look YouTube below.
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