2011 Champions Tour Thread

[killer_carlson]

This will be the golf tour which is most likely to see Canadians contend on a regular basis this year.

There are two Canadians to watch. Rod Spittle, is a great big tall guy who worked in the insurance industry for years before giving the tour a crack. He played college golf in the US (Ohio State I believe). He won the last tournament of last season and was t-6th this week and 2nd last week.

Jim Rutledge is the other Canadian. he does not have full time status but has the next layer down. It's tough to get full time status on the Champions Tour, as only the top 30 maintain their status. It's set up this way so guys who finish on the PGA Tour can get in easier to the tournaments. In any event, Rutledge is super steady and will be one of the tour leaders in GIR. His putter comes and goes though. He was top 10 last week and top 30 this week.

[killer_carlson]

after a pretty good start for Spittle, he really fell off. Rutledge had great stats - better all round ranking than Spittle for example - but never broke through to a top 3 finish all season.

HOWEVER.....

Spittle finished ~20th on the money list to get his card again next year and Jim Rutledge came T-2 in Champions Tour Q-School to get his card. Champions Tour Q-School is the most brutal of all of them, because even at the final stage, only the top 5 get full status, and then a handful get conditional status. It really heavily favours PGA Tour veterans making the jump after their PGA competitiveness ends.

So we will have 2 Canadians on the Champions Tour who may actually be competitive out there. Rutledge will hopefully get a new putter over the holidays (hell, I might send him a gift card to Golf Town to go buy one) as it was his putting which kept him from winning tournaments. Tee to green he was fantastic