Rutledge continues Champions Tour quest
Wed, 20 Oct 2010 08:57:36
by Jeff Brooke
Jim Rutledge earned a berth in the Administaff Small Business Classic this week by winning a qualifying tournament by four strokes on Monday.
It's the seventh time this year that Rutledge has played his way into a Champions Tour event through its Monday qualifiers.
The 51-year-old journeyman from Victoria is making progress toward earning full-time status on the senior circuit.
He's coming off his best Champions Tour result - an eighth-place finish at the final major tournament of the year, the Constellational Energy Senior Players Championship, on Oct. 10. Pocketing $86,4000 (all currency U.S.), the second-biggest payday of his career, he moved to No. 59 on the tour's money list.
A full-time job on the Champions Tour is notoriously tough to get, unless you're one of the high-profile PGA Tour players such as Fred Couples or Corey Pavin who turns 50 and is immediately invited to join.
Rutledge, whose biggest career victory was a Nationwide Tour win in 2006, doesn't have such a reputation or resume so the Monday qualifiers represent his best (and sometimes only) gateway into each tournament.
"Unfortunately I have to do it that way, but that's their rules," Rutledge said in a phone interview from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., last week before heading to Texas for the qualifier.
He's made 12 Champions starts this year, and he said he doesn't mind proving himself every week - especially if it leads to permanent residency alongside the likes of Couples, money list leader Bernhard Langer and Hale Irwin.
"This is my place to be," said Rutledge, who's circled the globe competing since turning pro in 1978 and was once a 47-year-old rookie on the PGA Tour.
He said he didn't bother entering the PGA Tour's Q-school this fall and sees his future only on the Champions Tour, which he described as far more relaxed and social than the PGA or Nationwide.
