The “gauntlet of golf,” as Max Homa calls it, or Q-School, as everyone else calls it, is golf’s ultimate pressure test. Imagine a tough multi-stage event where players fight for their Tour cards. To say the least, your career depends on it. You’d think that pros who have made it to the big league now didn’t have a hard time there back in the day, but that isn’t the case. Mel Reid and Michelle Wie West’s recent words are proof.

Reid recently shared her Q-School memories on the Quiet Please with Mel and Kira podcast. She remembered encountering Michelle Wie in 2007, who was already making waves in the golf world. West was just 12 years old and driving the ball 320 yards. Reid jokingly claimed that West “destroyed” her and “smashed Q-school so bad. She just killed it. Just smacked everybody there.”

While the details remain unclear regarding what event in particular they played together, the story clearly struck a chord with Wie West herself, who jumped into the comments section with a reality check.

“I do nottttt recall ‘smashing’ Q school; it felt like I barelyyyyy survived,” she wrote, before adding the kicker: “Literally nothing worse than Q school.” She doubled down on her Instagram story, reposting the clip with the caption “Dude, I barely survived Q School too. Nightmare fuel.”

Reid played the LET Q-School in 2007 but failed to qualify. She then turned pro in 2008. Wie West attended the LPGA Q-School in December 2008. Reid’s road to the LPGA was longer. She played in the LPGA Q-School in 2016 and earned her card. Then she joined the LPGA Tour in 2017.

Well, the pressure in Q-School isn’t new. Many other golfers have been through it, too. For instance, Bianca Pagdanganan.

She has been through Q-School three times, and she knows what it costs. During her 2022 Q-Series run, even while playing well, she described the reality: “It’s a lot of golf, and it just takes a toll on you mentally and physically.” The constant pressure forces careful emotional management. “When you go through the extremes, it just takes a lot out of you,” she explained.

That mental battle returned in 2025.

Pagdanganan finished with an even-par 71 at the LPGA Q-Series in Mobile, Alabama, which was cut short by bad weather. This was not enough to make the Top 25. She started her last round with a bogey on the par-5 10th, disrupting her momentum. Rain shortened the scheduled 90-hole competition to four days, putting even more pressure. She now has limited playing privileges for the next season, and will have to split her time between the Epson Tour and conditional LPGA events.

It’s important to take heed when Reid, a five-time LPGA winner, and Wie West, a former world number one, both say that Q-School is difficult. These players don’t fall apart when the pressure is on; they’ve triumphed on the biggest golf stages. But even after all these years, they still think of Q-School as one of the hardest things they’ve ever done.

The mental toll of the LPGA sure extends beyond the LPGA.

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PGA Tour players know the Q-School pain, too.

Max Homa remembers how tired he was after six rounds of finals. Golfers went out for drinks on the last night of the 2013 Q-School because they needed to relax. “A lot of people, including myself, were not in the best shape” for the next day’s eight-hour orientation, Homa admitted. But they needed to breathe after surviving what he called “the gauntlet of golf.”

The mental and physical toll was also there.

Steve LeBrun has done it 11 times. He remarked that the strain at Q-School was nothing compared to even the U.S. Open, which he played in 2020. LeBrun said that “ninety percent of the guys are walking on eggshells” because they are afraid that even saying something nice about a partner’s shot may jinx it. His caddie’s last remark stuck with him: “We literally have 100 holes left.”

“Everyone is sweating,” also said Homa. “Golf, in general, there’s camaraderie. I was wishing I could talk to people a little bit. But I feel like everyone was out of their comfort level a little bit.”

That discomfort really starts at the second stage, according to players who have been through it before. The main reason is that advancing through the Second Stage and into the Final Stage earns something. Some status. Some place to play. Second Stage still gives guys the heebie-jeebies talking about it.

LeBrun agrees.

“Final Stage is Final Stage, but for me, Second Stage was everything,” said LeBrun. “Q-School by name is more pressure-packed than any other tournament, but for me, I don’t think Final Stage is as pressure-packed as Second Stage.”

When all the big winners and tour pros use almost the same terms to describe Q-School—nightmare, gauntlet, brutal—it tells you all you need to know. It doesn’t matter if you’re Michelle Wie West, barely making it, or Steve LeBrun, trying for the 11th time. The pressure gets to everyone the same way. This season, Chan Kim’s journey in Q School is truly inspiring.