Air Apparent: The View From My Couch

By Don Carlson

TIME RUNNING OUT FOR SOME NATIONWIDE AND Q-SCHOOL GRADS

The completion of the US Open seems to be a good point at which to assess the performance of those graduates of last year’s Nationwide Tour and Q-school fortunate to find themselves toiling on the 2009 PGA Tour.

An additional assessment can be made of their chances of keeping their cards for the 2010 version absent, of course, a Ricky Barnes-like performance in a tournament during the last third of this season’s events. 

Grade A+ (100% sure of keeping their card)

Only one grad in this category: Y.E. Yang based on his winning this year’s Honda Classic.

Grade A (pretty much a lock to keep their cards)

Jason Dufner (3 top-10’s out of 13 cuts made); D.A. Points (3 top-10’s); Jeff Klauk (14 cuts made); James Nitties (only 10 cuts made, but he usually cashes a big check).

Grade B (75% sure IF they continue to make cuts)

Ted Purdy, Webb Simpson, Scott Piercy, Marc Leishman, Bryce Molder, Bill Lunde, Matt Bettencourt and, of course, Barnes on the strength of his Open week.  He moved up the Money List 119 spots (to #78) after that week alone; only David Duval made a bigger move (from #204 to #82) in a single week.

Grade C (50-50 whether they’re back in 2010)

Harrison Frazer, Chris Stroud, Robert Garrigus, Brenden DeJonge, Greg Chalmers, Greg Owen, Aron Price and Matt Weibring.

Grade D (all have shown their potential, but all need a big check)

Casey Wittenberg, Jarrrod Lyle, Spencer Levin and Glen Day.

Incomplete

Arjun Atwal, who only played in four events to this point, will probably be granted a medical exemption for 2010 because of health issues.

Grade F

Everyone else!   That includes a number of golfers who were expected to do much better than they have, if only because they’d been there before: Notah Begay, Chris Riley, Jay Williamson, Mathias Gronberg and John Huston.

It also includes rookie pros with storehouses of potential based on prior successes: Derek Fathauer, Colt Knost and Peter Tomasulo.

This process of being continuously tested, week in and week out, with rewards based solely on individual performance, proves that REMAINING on the PGA Tour is even more difficult than qualifying in the first place!  All of these guys can play, but it can disappear so quickly: just ask Riley or Jesper Parnevik or Brandt Snedeker.