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LAKE BUENA VISTA, Florida (AFP) –
England‘s Gary Christian, pictured in August 2012, is among the players battling to secure his PGA Tour card for next year as the 2012 season wraps up at Walt Disney World Resort.
England’s Gary Christian is among the players battling to secure his PGA Tour card for next year as the 2012 season wraps up at Walt Disney World Resort.
The $4.7 million tournament on Disney’s Magnolia and Palm courses is the final event of the tour’s Fall Series, and the battle will be on to see who finishes in the top 125 on the money list to earn full playing privileges for next season.
Christian, a US tour rookie this year at the age of 41, insisted he welcomed the test.
“It’s kind of nice to get to that stage now where you have to perform,” Christian said Wednesday. “This is it. You’ve got one more chance, and do good or you go home.”
“I think it makes a man of you — if I come through this and get into that top 125,” he said. “Then I think going forward, you use that as something very positive to fall on where you have one opportunity to perform and you did.”
Colombia’s Camilo Villegas, who won back-to-back FedEx Cup playoff events in 2008 and the Honda Classic in 2010, hasn’t won since. He has never finished worse than 77th on the money list, but arrives this week ranked 150th.
Double heart transplant recipient Erik Compton, at 163rd on the list, also needs a big week to secure his card for a second straight season.
“The tour is such a fine line,” Compton said. “You really don’t realize how great you have it until you don’t have a tour card and you’re at home and watching on television. I’ve been kind of on the receiving end of that for some years.
“But I feel strangely calm this week, just maybe because I feel confident … that I’ll have opportunities to win and get back to the tour.”
The event will be without defending champion Luke Donald, who rallied last year for a victory that gave him the US PGA Tour money title.
He also claimed the European Tour Order of Merit, becoming the first player to capture both money titles in the same season.
Donald is skipping the event to be with his family as his daughter undergoes a medical procedure.
Davis Love, whose 20 career victories give him lifetime membership on the US tour, will still try to keep an impressive streak alive as he seeks a strong enough performance to post a 27th straight season of finishing in the top 100 on the money list.
His share of fourth at last month’s McGladrey Classic moved Love up to 98th.
