Life is tough for most professional golfers. Often, years of hard work, uncertainty and financial struggles don't make PGA dreams come true.
Promising junior golf years, followed by a high profile college career, an exemption to a Tour event and quick PGA success sounds like a great life. It's also the vision most players and fans have of a professional golfer's life. It also happens to be the exception to the rule.
Every year, scores of aspiring golfers bring their skills to regional qualifiying tournaments in hopes of making the PGA Tour. The final stage of tour qualification, the PGA Tour National Qualifying Tournament, is commonly known as the Q-School.
Everyone watched Phil Mickelson, Tiger Woods, Sergio Garcia and a few others rocket to success, but their experience is rare. During the 2006 Q-School, 40 players earned their Tour cards for 2007. Fantastic for them, but consider that more than 100 players at the tournament came up empty-handed. After completing the grueling, six-round tournament that was the key to their future, they are now playing on the Nationwide Tour or any of several other mini-tours or minor tours around the world, or they are at home deciding what to do with the rest of their lives.
The players that failed to receive their PGA Tour credentials are not simply fresh out of college or unknowns. Those sent home included former Tour pros Duffy Waldorf, Esteban Toledo, Lee Janzen, Franklin Langham and several others. Such accomplished players failing to reach the top-30 scores and ties is a testament to the difficulty of Q-School.
The top players on the Nationwide Tour also receive their PGA Tour credentials. One of the best success stories of 2007 is Canadian Jim Rutledge. After more than 25 years of trying, Old Man Rut, as he is called at age 47, has finally made it to the PGA Tour. He has had success on the Canadian, European and Asian Tours since he turned professional in 1978, through the Canadian Q-School. He finished 14th on the Nationwide Tour in 2006 and won the ING New Zealand PGA Championship. Although he has enjoyed some success along the way, he attempted the Q-School more than a dozen times and never succeeded. Here's to his success this year.
Rutledge's renown as a fantastic player is further proof of the difficulty of the Q-School route to the PGA. His is also a more common story than today's superstars: years of grinding it out in the minors before reaching the ultimate goal. His sporadic success along the way allowed him to continue toward that goal. Many players don't even get the chance to continue toward their dreams before life takes them in other directions.
