Johnson Wagner made a great effort but fell just short of securing his tour card
The biggest story of the week was probably Troy Merritt finishing right on the bubble at 125 and cashing a $1 million check for winning the Kodak Challenge in a playoff against Aaron Baddeley and Rickie Fowler. I imagine that it had to be one of the best Sunday’s Merritt has had in his life.
But Merritt wasn’t the only player fighting for his card. Roland Thatcher might have “vomited” away the tournament (his words), but he did enough to make a huge jump from 179 to 122. It was close though. He had to make a 5 foot putt to secure his card after Spencer Levin 3-jacked it from 18 feet. However not only did Thatcher make the putt, he cashed a $500k check. So not a bad weekend for him either.
And of course Robert Garrigus’s win erased his demons from the loss to Lee Westwood earlier this year and moved him from 122 to 51 on the money list. 125 may be the magic number, but top 70 is important too because it opens up entry to several additional events.
Michael Connell moved from 129 to 115 with a strong finish, as did Mark Wilson who jumped from 140 to 123. Johnson Wagner made a great effort, but fell just short, moving from 153 to 126.
A number of players weren’t able to keep pace with the field. Briny Baird dropped a spot to 126, even though he made $43k this week. Woody Austin and Michael Allen both missed the cut and dropped from 123 and 124 to 129 and 130 respectively.
But the biggest heartbreak probably came from Troy Matteson. He had been sitting at 125, and when he made the cut, I thought he was probably safe. But his lackluster weekend play wasn’t enough to keep pace with Thatcher, Connell, and Wilson, which pushed him 3-spots down the list to 128.
One thing to keep in mind through all of this is that Wagner and Matteson both cleared well in excess of $700k, so it’s not like they’re going to be scrambling to put food on the table next year. Additionally, they’ll be exempt into the final stage of Q-school, guaranteeing them status on either the PGA Tour or Nationwide Tour in 2011.
Also, players that finish from 126-150, have conditional status on Tour the following year. No, they’re not “fully exempt” which means they can’t make their own schedule, but if they’re flexible and willing to travel at the last minute, they should be able to play around 20 events on Tour.
Will MacKenzie will have to play well at the 2nd stage of Q-School to avoid the mini-tours in 2011
Players that dropped outside of the top-150 (like Will MacKenzie did with a missed cut) are really the guys that get the short end of the stick. Yes, MacKenzie did earn $557k, but all he gets is a ticket to the 2nd stage of q-school (being played this week). If he fails to advance, he could find himself playing the mini-tours and looking for sponsors exemptions into both PGA Tour and Nationwide Tour events. That’s a pretty big fall from grace. But that’s the life of a professional golfer. There are a limited number of spots at the top and there’s always a new group of players looking to take your job.
Overall this has been a heck of a fall series. We’ve seen lots of eagles and aces. Players played their hearts out. Some were able to come through and others fell a bit short. And in about 8 weeks, we’ll get to start this whole thing all over again. I can’t wait.
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Congrats to the PGA. They took a boring time on the tour and made it exciting. Now if they will fix the FedEx situation, they can grow interest in the tour.