Second stage will close Saturday

The final pieces of the q-school puzzle will fall into place on Saturday when the last two second-stage events are completed in California and Texas.

Five players who have won six PGA TOUR events are among the entrants at Oak Valley Golf Club in Beaumont, Calif., vying to become one of the players who advance to next month's final. That number is based on the field size and generally is around 20.

Heading the list is Brent Geiberger, who won the 1999 Canon Greater Hartford Open and 2004 Chrysler Classic of Greensboro. With the Greensboro victory, Geiberger became the seventh player to win the same tournament as his father -- Al won in 1976.

Also in the field are Mark Hensby, who won the 2004 John Deere Classic; Bob Burns, the winner of the 2002 Disney Golf Classic; 2005 EDS Byron Nelson Championship winner Ted Purdy and Phil Tataurangi, the champion of the 2002 Invensys Classic of Las Vegas.

Four-time PGA TOUR champ Notah Begay III headlines the field at Lantana Golf Club in Lantana, Texas. Begay won the 1999 Reno-Tahoe Open and Michelob Championship at Kingsmill as well as the 2000 FedEx St. Jude Classic and Canon Greater Hartford Open.

Paul Stankowski, who has two TOUR wins, is also playing at Lantana. He captured the 1996 Bell South Classic and the 1997 United Airlines Hawaiian Open.

The other two former TOUR champs in the field at Lantana are Joel Edwards and David Gossett. Both their wins came in 2001 with Gossett taking the John Deere Classic and Edwards winning the Air Canada Championship.

The final stage of the PGA TOUR National Qualifying Tournament will be held at PGA West in La Quinta, Calif., from Dec. 3-8. The low 25 players and ties at the end of 108 holes will receive their TOUR cards while the rest receive some degree of status on the Nationwide Tour.

Four second stage events were held last week with 85 players advancing. Among those exempt into the final stage are players who finished Nos. 126-150 on the TOUR money list and Nos. 26-40 in earnings on the Nationwide Tour, as well as players in the top 50 of the Official World Golf Ranking.