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Back to School for Tour pros ... and it's going to be hell

Former Tour pro Roger Chapman remembers the pain of trying to qualify for your card...

It's hard to believe but there are, out of a field of 156, 26 European Tour winners playing at San Roque this week in The Tour School Finals.

One of them, Andrew Coltart, played in the Ryder Cup only eight years ago, losing his singles match to Tiger Woods. How fortunes change.

Coltart is a great player and it'd difficult to understand why he is in this position. I think he thinks too much about the theory of the game and has got his head in a muddle about swing thoughts instead of using his natural ability.

San Roque in November is not a fun place. Come next Tuesday, there will be some happy faces and Wednesday morning a few hang-overs! But there will be a lot of sad faces. Another year if they are lucky on the Challenge Tour or the Europro Tour.

The format for the week is: 156 players tee-up on Thursday and play six rounds of golf, two on the New Course and four on the Old Course. There is a cut after four rounds and the top 70 and ties will play rounds five and six over the Old Course.

Then, come Tuesday evening, the top-30 and ties will have earned the right to play on the 2008 European Tour. The others will have to take stock and decide their future. The higher up you finish at the School the more chances you have of playing than finishing 30th at the School.

Because the Tour goes all over the world, it will be very difficult for the guys who win their cards to play much before the Madeira Open in March. This is because most of the events are in the Middle East, Far East, Australia and South Africa and are called co-sanctioned events.

This means that the Tour is going to countries where they already have established events and 'home' players will have 50 per cent of the field.

For example, the Australasian Tour invited the European Tour to the MasterCard Masters at Huntingdale. That event has been going for years, by inviting the European Tour there the field was going to be better, the money more than tripled but we (the European Tour) wanted 50 per cent of the field. Anybody finishing more than 100th on 2007 Order of Merit would struggle to get into the event.

So every event from now, the Hong Kong Open to the Ballantines Championship in Korea will be co-sanctioned and very difficult for the Tour graduates to get into. Fourteen events then could be missed by some of the low finishers, is that fair? I think not. You will be playing catch up from March. It's like a 400m race, Tour graduates start at the 400m line the guys who finish top 80-ish of last year's Order of Merit start at the 200m line and see who gets over the line first.

Going back to the School. It is a long and emotional week. Six days of competition, two to three days of practice plus your travel.

I missed my card for the Tour in 1999 and went back to San Roque for the first time since 1981. I went with the attitude of me being the most experienced player there and walked along the practice range line and made sure everyone saw me. My thinking was that if they saw me, a player who had finished runner-up six times on Tour had numerous top fives and top 10s then maybe they would think about it a bit more and worry about getting their card. It made me feel better too! The ego boost worked for me and I finished 12th and got my card back. I remember making the cut, and then playing rounds five and six without making a bogey.

Despite that, it was like playing the first hole of The Open 108 times. Very nerve racking and probably the most difficult and emotional thing I have done in my career. I had to go back in 2004 and 2005 and decided at the end of 2005 to call it quits on the main Tour. I wasn't enjoying it traveling all over the world finishing 40th and making up the numbers. I thought: 'If I wasn't competing to win what's the point of being out there.'

Thirty weeks a year away from your family is a hard life bit an enjoyable one. I took a year off to recharge the batteries and am 18 months away from the Seniors Tour and I can't wait.

To all the players at Tour School, good luck, and if you're one of the lucky ones, enjoy playing on The European Tour.