When the final putt dropped on the PGA Tour”s 2007 season last month in Orlando, a number of well-known and wealthy linksters suddenly found themselves out of a job for 2008. Each year the top 125 money winners are exempt into the next season. This time around, one had to earn $785,180 to fill out the 125th and final spot for the following year. A mere one dollar less and one is no longer exempt on golf”s biggest and most financially beneficial tour.
As is always the case, a number of talented golfers with an impressive golfing resume find themselves on the outside looking in. Past multiple winners on the PGA Tour who fell outside that top 125 line this year included Ted Purdy, Robert Gamez, Frank Licklitter, Billy Andrade, Corey Pavin, Bob Tway, Chris Riley, Lee Janzen, Carlos Franco and John Daly.
Of course, because the sport of golf is the ultimate meritocracy, those golfers who lost their tour cards will be replaced by graduates from the AAA-level Nationwide Tour as well as those golfers who survived the grueling 108-hole process that”s called the PGA Tour Qualifying School. In some cases, wide-eyed tour rookies will join Tiger and Phil on the 2008 version of the PGA Tour. However, more often than not, those returning to the circuit will be familiar names who have lost their tour cards sometime over the past few years.
The top 25 golfers from this year”s Nationwide Tour earned promotions to the big tour for 2008. The 25 men who have earned tour cards based on their season-long performance are a varied lot. The oldest is 44-year-old John Riegger of Las Vegas who played as a tour rookie in 1987, a full 20 years ago. At the other end of the spectrum is 19-year-old Jason Day, who didn”t play college golf and wasn”t even born when Riegger first teed it up on tour.
While the concept behind the Ben Hogan Tour of the 1990s, the forerunner of the Nationwide Tour, was to give young players a chance to hone their game without having to play on some remote foreign tour. The reality of the current graduating class is that eight of the 25 professionals are age 35 or older and 14 of the pros have been members of the PGA Tour in the past. Only 11 are rookies.
Some of those going uptown to the PGA Tour are familiar journeymen such as Roland Thatcher, Patrick Sheehan, Ron Whitaker, Tom Sherer, Brad Elder and Omar Uresti. Others such as Richard Johnson (not Richard S. Johnson), Michael Letzig, Kyle Thompson and Chad Collins are virtual unknowns. One new player, Marc Turnesa, will be a tour rookie although six members of his well-known golf family have played on the PGA tour during the 1940s through the 1960s.
If there is a future star among the 25 grads, it could very well be Australian Nick Flanagan, a 23-year-old who was the circuit”s third-leading money winner. He has a lot of experience, having played the Australian Tour since he was an 18-year-old. His best result in major was a 23rd-place finish in the 2005 British Open at St. Andrews. Most of his contemporaries have never even been in a major championship. Flanagan is probably the best of the new breed.
Earlier this month, the PGA Tour held its six-round, 108-hole qualifying tournament in Winter Garden, Florida. Another 25 professionals advanced from the one-week pressure cooker commonly known as Q School. The Q School grads include a number of familiar names as well as some others who are unknown to computer search engines.
Some golfers who lost their cards because of a substandard 2007 season were able to get back to center stage in December. Three good examples of Q School success are Frank Licklitter, Duffy Waldorf and Carlos Franco. Licklitter has two PGA Tour titles to his name, Waldorf has four American Tour wins, while Franco has four PGA Tour wins and 27 international titles in Europe and Australia.
Others aren”t as famous as the aforementioned trio but have a solid background in professional golf. Brett Rumford is an exempt member of the European Tour. Yong-Eun Yang has won five times on the Asian Tour. David Lutteris is a regular on the Australian Tour. Jim McGovern won three times on the inaugural Ben Hogan Tour in 1990 and won the Shell Houston Open in 1993.
One of the Q School grads is somewhat of a cult hero in the world of golf. Tommy Gainey, who goes by the nickname of “Tommy Two Gloves,” is a past personality on the Golf Channel”s Big Break. Gainey played well at Q School for five days, fell apart on the final day in shooting 77, and made the top 25 right on the number. Gainey is one of those guys who I think will have a difficult time on tour because of his unique swing and his lack of experience.
Finally, for every Duffy Waldorf who gets through Q School and rejoins the tour, there are just as many who fail to advance. U.S. Amateur champ Colt Knost was well outside the top 25, finishing in a tie for 85th. Former tour winners such as Corey Pavin, Steve Pate, Grant Waite, Robert Gamez, Notah Begay III and Harrison Frazar came up short in their efforts to return to the PGA Tour.
Over the next few weeks, the exempt members of the 2008 PGA Tour will be planning their schedules. They”ll decide to play at Pebble Beach, Westchester, Riviera and Doral. For the others, they”ll be looking at the mini-tours and will appear at stops light years removed from Pebble Beach, going from the Boise Open to the Dakota Dunes Classic.
