Sympatico Column: Canadians Still Have Plenty Left to Play For
By Robert Thompson
My latest Sympatico column, about the final weeks of the Nationwide Tour and the Canadians involved, is now online. Lorne Rubenstein in the Globe coincidently wrote on a similar topic that can be found here.
Here’s a taste from my column:
While the PGA Tour winds down after the $10-million FedEx Cup, a number of Canadian golfers are still battling through a handful of tournaments that could play an important role in the direction of their careers.
. They may not be playing for millions of viewers on television, but in terms of their future, it is equally important.
“All I need is a good week of some sort,” says Vernon, B.C. native Chris Baryla, while walking The Country Club Soboba Springs in California, home of this week’s Nationwide Tour stop. “A Top 3 finish might put me in the mix.”
Baryla is one of those players on the bubble on the Nationwide Tour, golf’s version of Triple-A baseball. There are really only two ways to make the jump to the big leagues of the PGA Tour – through the meat grinder that is PGA Tour qualifying school or by being one of the Top 25 players on the Nationwide Tour money list. Baryla enters this week at #53, but only $50,000 out of the group that will play on the PGA Tour next year. He’s one of a number of notable Canadians in the same predicament. Oshawa’s Jon Mills, who spent the 2008 season on the PGA Tour, is #42, while Alberta native Dustin Risdon is at #35 in his rookie season on the Nationwide Tour. Other Canadians hoping for a break from farther down the money list include Brantford, Ont.’s David Hearn, Aurora, Ont. native David Morland IV, Cambridge, Ont. veteran Ian Leggat and longtime standout Jim Rutledge.
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