The stage may be humble but the prize on offer is craved.
Away from the glare of golf’s focus in the Middle East this week with the start of the DP World Tour Play-Offs in Abu Dhabi, livelihoods are at stake as the Final Stage of Qualifying School takes place in Spain.
Starting Friday and staged across six days, a field of 156 players will vie for all-important playing privileges on Golf’s Global Tour in the 2026 season.
Each player will play two rounds over INFINITUM's Lakes and Hills courses before a 72-hole cut is made, with the top 20 and ties at the end of a further 36 holes securing status on the DP World Tour.
Here, we rundown some of the biggest names vying to come out on top of a week widely viewed as golf’s toughest test.
| Player | Age | Country | DP World Tour titles | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eddie Pepperell | 34 | England | 2 | After missing out by one shot on regaining his DP World Tour playing privileges at Q-School last year, the Englishman – a household name despite falling outside the world’s top 500 – is hoping to map out a route back to the heights he enjoyed in 2018 and 2019. |
| Chris Wood | 37 | England | 3 | Won the BMW PGA Championship on his way to becoming a Ryder Cup player in 2016 and climbing into the world’s top 50, but he suffered from injuries and a loss of form leading to anxiety that saw him take a break from the game in 2023. |
| Yannik Paul | 31 | Germany | 1 | Narrowly missed out on the 2023 Ryder Cup at Marco Simone in a campaign which saw him record seven top ten finishes, but he lost his full playing rights last month after four consecutive years on the DP World Tour during which he claimed silverware in Mallorca in 2022. |
| Alexander Levy | 35 | France | 5 | After winning the Trophée Hassan II – his fifth DP World Tour title - in 2018, he was in contention for a Ryder Cup spot on home soil. Suffered a loss of form and despite appearing to be back on the comeback trail last year as a graduate of the HotelPlanner Tour, he is back at Q-School after finishing 140th on the Race to Dubai Rankings. |
| Shubhankar Sharma | 29 | India | 2 | Among the higher-profile names to have progressed through Second Stage, having lost his DP World Tour status after a campaign blighted by on-course struggles attributed to significant changes in his golf equipment. |
| Lucas Bjerregaard | 34 | Denmark | 2 | Perhaps best known for knocking Tiger Woods out of the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play in 2019, a year after claiming the second of his two DP World Tour titles at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, he lost his status last month after only regaining it through the HotelPlanner Tour last year. |
| Marc Warren | 44 | Scotland | 4 | Since making his DP World Tour in 2001, he has made 499 appearances and this year is the 20th anniversary of him topping the HotelPlanner Tour rankings to secure full playing rights for the first time. |
| Justin Harding | 39 | South Africa | 2 | Has played in all four Major Championships, climbing into the world’s top 50 for the first time in 2019 but he now finds himself 799th after three consecutive seasons without a top ten worldwide. |
| Oliver Wilson | 45 | England | 2 | Played 11 Major Championships in a row between 2008 and 2010 - a timeframe which featured a Ryder Cup appearance at Valhalla – but the US-based two-time DP World Tour winner lost his full playing privileges and is back at Final Stage for a seventh time in his career. |
| George Coetzee | 39 | South Africa | 5 | First made his way onto the DP World Tour through Q-School in 2009, and he has since made 330 DP World Tour appearances, winning five times in a four-year span from 2014 to 2017. A wrist injury in 2023 saw him sidelined for about 16 months. |
