Australia’s Anthony Quayle was waiting by the phone on Friday morning for an email to determine whether he and three other pros would be eligible for the PGA Tour’s secondary Korn Ferry Tour finals.

By the afternoon, his management, SeaRoo sports, fielded a call by PGA Tour officials to confirm the Queenslander was indeed in after a complicated review process that was triggered by Bubba Watson resigning from the PGA Tour to join LIV Golf. The 27-year-old Quayle will now play the three Korn Ferry finals events, where 25 PGA Tour cards are up for grabs for next season.

“I’m stoked to have the opportunity to earn a PGA Tour card over the next few weeks,” he told Australian Golf Digest via text message. “It’s something I’ve dreamt of my whole life, so to be able to have a chance of achieving that in less than a month from now is a pretty exciting prospect.”

Quayle, who plays mainly on the Japan Tour, had earned enough non-member points from his T15th at the Open Championship at St Andrews to finish inside the top 200 on the FedEx Cup points tally. Nos. 126-200 on the FedEx Cup each year enter Korn Ferry Tour finals to try and win their PGA Tour cards back.

But a perfect storm bumped Quayle and the other three out of the 200.

Joohyung “Tom” Kim, a non-member at the time, won the Wyndham Championship. He jumped to 34th on the points list and knocked everyone below him down one spot. In turn, this meant Quayle and co fell below the threshold.

But a window of opportunity opened when two-time Masters winner Watson publicly announced via Twitter on Wednesday that he had resigned his membership from the PGA Tour ahead of playing on the LIV Golf circuit in 2023.

Watson, a 12-time PGA Tour winner, is still recovering from a knee injury that has kept him from competing since the PGA Championship in May. Because he hasn’t yet played in a LIV event, Watson was not suspended by the PGA Tour, and thus remained on the eligibility portion of the FedEx Cup standings. He sat at 151st with 199.056 points.

On Friday, the PGA Tour finally removed Watson from the list and informed Quayle’s management that Quayle was in. The Korn Ferry Tour Finals series begins on August 18.