Andrew Vijarro looks over the green with caddie Joel Salmond before making a putt while practicing at Lost Tracks Golf Club last spring. The Bend golfer is trying to qualify for the Web.com Tour, the devlopmental tour for the PGA Tour.

The second stage of National Qualifying School often separates the golf prospects with the brightest futures from the mere dreamers.

Bend’s Andrew Vijarro is hoping he will officially land in the former group by week’s end.

Vijarro, a 24-year-old professional golfer from Bend, will tee off Tuesday at Bear Creek Golf Club in Murrieta, Calif., for the first round of the second stage of the Web.com Tour’s Q-School.

At stake in the 72-hole event is at least partial status on the PGA Tour’s primary developmental circuit — a guarantee to any golfer who makes it out of any one of six second-stage sites — and a chance to play in Q-School’s final stage in December for a full-time spot on the 2014 Web.com Tour.

“I just have to prepare as hard as I can and let the chips fall where they do,” says Vijarro, who has spent the last several weeks in the Phoenix, Ariz., area working on his golf game. “It’s a good opportunity. First stage is never easy to get through.”

Vijarro last month propelled himself through the first stage when he closed his final round with three birdies in four holes to post a 3-under-par 69 at Dayton Valley Golf Club in Dayton, Nev. That put him in a tie for 14th place at 1 under after 72 holes, three shots clear of what was needed to advance to second stage.

Perhaps as important, his final surge lifted his confidence.

“I made it by three or four shots but it was a lot closer than it seemed,” Vijarro recalls. “There was a lot of pressure, and I started feeling it because those finishing holes (at Dayton Valley) are tough.

“You get a lot of confidence going into the next stage being that that course played SO hard. To finish 14th in a field like that, that was good.”

His next challenge will be decidedly more difficult.

In addition to the golfers who advanced out of the first stage, the second stage includes players from both the PGA and Web.com tours who struggled in 2013.

In Bear Creek, Vijarro does have a Southern California golf course with fast greens and one designed to put accuracy off the tee at a premium.

Such conditions are precisely why the Bend High School graduate, who is considered a control player, made the choice (golfers can choose whatever Q-School site they want) to play Bear Creek.

“Obviously it’s nice that it is in California and only five hours from where I am at (in Phoenix),” Vijarro says. “But I talked to some people who played in second stage last year, and this one was definitely the best fit for my game.”

Vijarro turned professional after graduating in summer 2012 from the University of Oregon, where he spent four years as a standout golfer. Since, he has steadily climbed the professional ladder.

After he was knocked out of Q-School’s first stage in October 2012, he enjoyed a breakout winter on the mini-tour circuit in Arizona. And in April, Vijarro earned his card on PGA Tour Canada. Up North he made two cuts in nine tournaments, which Vijarro says was a “little disheartening.”

Regardless, Vijarro is attempting to accomplish one of the most grinding feats in professional golf — making it through all three stages of Q-School to earn a Web.com Tour card.

Only the top 50 golfers after December’s 108-hole final stage, which will be played at PGA West in La Quinta, Calif., will earn their Web.com Tour card for 2014. More than 1,000 golfers entered Q-School this year.

But those odds do not seem to faze Vijarro.

“It’s virtually the same thing, but there is more at stake,” says Vijarro, comparing the pressure of Q-School to a PGA Tour Canada event. “But you know if you play well the reward is higher. And you know if you play bad then you miss another year to get out there. In that sense, you know in the back of your mind that there is a lot more at stake. But all you can do is prepare and get ready, and that’s what I have been doing the last few weeks.”