As is the case for Omar Uresti, longtime touring pro who saw his game fall into disarray near the end of the season on the Web.com Tour. A T-12 at April's Soboba Golf Classic was his last top-25 of 2012, and a myriad of missed cuts and early Sunday starting times filled the remainder of Uresti's season, where he finished No. 109 on the money list and lost his status. Without a place to play for 2013, it was a sudden and profound fall.
This week's Sanderson farms Championship on the PGA Tour provides a respite for some of these woebegone veterans who have lost their games in recent years, thanks to its slot opposite the British Open. With many of the PGA Tour's leading talents overseas at Muirfield, the Sanderson Farms field in Jackson, MS traditionally opens up to those in the depths of the PGA Tour's priority ranking system, such as veteran members and past champions. Although Uresti never secured a victory on Tour (his high finish was 3rd), he qualifies as a veteran member by making at least 150 career PGA Tour cuts, a figure he reached at the 2008 Reno-Tahoe Open. This week, his number was called.
So Uresti embarked on an opportunity to make some PGA Tour money this week, ironic considering his lack of status on the Web.com Tour. After a first-round 73 in benign conditions at Annandale CC (derailed by a bogey-double bogey-bogey stretch midway through his round), and with a projected cut of 3-under par, it looked like Uresti would go gently into golf's good night - waiting until maybe next year in Mississippi, where his name will likely be called again.
After finishing nine holes in even-par in a second round that started Friday night and lasted into Saturday morning, there was no reason to think otherwise. But somewhere along the way, as Uresti prepared to begin his second nine a distant four strokes outside the cut line (at 1-over for the event), something clicked. The proud Texan rolled in a 14-footer for birdie on the par-5 11th, then made a string of solid pars on holes 12 thru 15, one of the rare semi-tough stretches at Annandale.
Knowing he needed three birdies in his last three holes to make the cut, Uresti then gave it all he had. He knocked his approach on 16 to six feet for a birdie, then stiffed one over water to inside two feet on 17. Another birdie. Three under on the round and two under for the week, Uresti had a simple task ahead if he wished to play the weekend: birdie the 532-yard, par-5 18th.
Uresti knocked a solid drive up the fairway, then laid up to inside 70 yards. For a seasoned veteran, a 69-yard shot in Annandale's soft conditions is nothing to be afraid of. It wasn't. He knocked it inside four feet - three feet, eight inches, to be exact.
But the man's career has been derailed by the flatstick, and Saturday morning proved no different. Uresti missed the putt, and he missed the cut by a sole stroke.
For a player with no tournament-level seasoning this year, missing the cut by a shot is nothing to be ashamed of. And besides, even if he had made the cut, he would've needed a top-10 finish if he wished to continue playing into next week's RBC Canadian Open at Glen Abbey GC outside Toronto, a venue where he finished T-22 in 2008 propelled by a Sunday 68.
However, making the cut could have been a shot in the arm for the 44-year-old, a chance to play two more rounds of tournament golf in a career that appears to be on its last legs. With a direct path to the PGA Tour for non-exempt players no longer in existence, Uresti's best hopes of playing full-time next year involve making it through this December's Web.com Tour qualifying tournament. From there, he would have to earn his way into the big leagues for the 2014-15 season.
Walking up to the 18th green as he finished his second round, the chance was there. It's too bad his putter did what it always did, time and again, throughout a 20-plus year career.
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