00:00So according to the USGA, roughly 800 U.S.-based pros, including not only tour professionals, but also club and teaching pros, annually apply for reinstatement, and virtually all of them are approved.
00:12Pros who want their AMP status back need to only answer a couple dozen questions on an application.
00:17Application fees $200.
00:19Among the info they got a supplier are tours they played on, results, cuts made, prize money won, two people who can attest to the accuracy of the info.
00:27The minimum waiting period for a pro seeking reinstatement is six months from their last pro action, but more decorated tour pros, the cooling off period can take years.
00:39So this is a quote from – I don't have the name of the guy who was in the story, but his last name is Winter, and I think he's a senior official at the USGA.
00:47Craig Weber.
00:48There you go.
00:49The more success you have, the more that you would be asked to wait from whenever your last breach was, and the weight that we put on that is,
00:55it's hard to just kind of put into words specifically, but if you played on a major tour and had membership,
00:59you're going to wait quite a bit longer than someone who played mini-tour golf and won cash prizes or prizes above $1,000, the limit in the current rules.
01:07The question was posed in this article, has a pro ever been denied reinstatement?
01:11Not as – as far as Craig Winter can tell, they looked back through the archives.
01:16No one's ever been denied reinstatement.
01:17So then the hypothetical was posed, what would happen if Scotty Scheffler wanted his amateur status back?
01:23And Scheffler falls into what the USGA calls its national prominence category.
01:29So in other words, players of large repute, for pros in this class, it's a pretty easy decision.
01:34This is, again, a quote from Craig Winter.
01:36I'm very confident that Scotty, should he choose to apply or submit to this situation, he'd receive a phone call that would say,
01:40Scotty, unfortunately, you fit the national prominence category and you're not eligible.
01:44So that's just a series of information there on the way they process these things.
01:49But I do think there's a little bit of a nebulous line that's drawn there.
01:53And I wonder too, Smiley, like what the goal is of pros that are trying to kind of get their amateur status back.
02:04Competition, man.
02:05Competition.
02:05Competition.
02:06We miss competition.
02:07It's as simple as that.
02:09But, you know, I think for some, it's like, what is it, you know, of course, it's competition itself.
02:14But it's also like, what does that attach to you?
02:15So in the example of the Mid-Am, that player for, you know, the recent history gets an exemption into the Masters, right?
02:24So he's got a nice little kind of, you know, character.
02:25Hard to win the Mid-Am.
02:26Hard to win the Mid-Am.
02:27So, but, but it's, does the, if it becomes a thing where the Mid-Am is littered with these ex-pros and Augusta Nationals viewing that as, is this really in the spirit of the way we set up this exemption to award the pure amateur golfer?
02:42Like, does, does that change?
02:44I don't know.
02:45Like, you know, I'm not against the whole thing.
02:48I mean, I think it's just the top, the top level.
02:52Like, I think the Colt ones, obviously, like, debatable when you've made as much money as he has on the PGA Tour, you know, played as long as he did on the Tour.
03:01There's going to be people that are upset about that.
03:03And I can understand why, you know, from my, from my standpoint, if I wanted to put my amateur status back, I don't think I should be able to get it back because I won on the PGA Tour.
03:13But I also, like, I, there's nowhere for me to play golf besides member guests and member members where it doesn't even feel right playing in those anyways.
03:23And I can't get any starts in PGA Tour events.
03:26And I'm, I'm, I guess you can maybe try to get sponsors invites over to Asia or wherever you can try to get starts.
03:33There's just nowhere to play for someone like Colt or I.
03:35So, I can understand that why Colt would want to try to get his AM status back if you got to play, you know, by the way, the AM circuit.
03:43It is, the AM circuit is fantastic.
03:45There are some incredible events, Seminole, Pine Valley, you got the mid-amp.
03:49Yeah, there's a ton of them, yeah.
03:50There's some great events.
03:51Sure, I would love to compete in playing a couple of those.
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