On bubble again
Andover’s Oppenheim fights for card
While the PGA Tour already has figured out which members are keeping their cards for next season, Web.com Tour players have some work left to earn a promotion.
Half of the 50 cards awarded by the Web.com Tour are up for grabs in this weekend’s final regular-season tournament, the WinCo Foods Portland Open at Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club in North Plains, Ore.
No player in the field understands just how fine the line is between keeping and losing that prized PGA Tour card better than Rob Oppenheim.
Two years ago, the Andover native missed the cut at this event and finished the regular season at No. 26 on the Web.com money list, just $943 behind the final automatic card spot. He managed to earn that coveted card, however, through his performance at the four-tournament Web.com Tour playoffs, which combine the top 75 players on the money list and PGA Tour players ranked 126-200 in the FedEx Cup standings.
Of course, Oppenheim earned the last available card for 2016 by the thinnest of margins. Just $101 separated him from the PGA Tour and another year of golf’s version of the minors.
Last season, he made 13 cuts in 21 PGA Tour events but had only two top-25 finishes. A tie for 10th at the Quicken Loans National was his best result, and he finished 158th in FedEx Cup points to earn a return trip to the Web.com playoffs. Oppenheim went into the final event in 26th place, just $392 from keeping his place on the tour. But the threat of Hurricane Matthew forced the Tour Championship to be cancelled, and he was out of luck.
Back on the Web.com Tour this year, Oppenheim has four top 10s, including a tie for second last month at the Utah Championship and a tie for fifth last week in Knoxville, Tenn. With $148,709 earned this year, he finds himself in 26th place once again, $6,257 behind No. 25 Beau Hossler.
“You really can’t really make that up,” Oppenheim said of his propensity for being the bubble boy. “It’s a good spot to be in, in the sense where I’m close. I’m definitely close to getting my tour card again. This year is a little more consistent, to be where I am without a win.
“I’ve been there before, and some have been good experiences, and some have been bad, and I think I can draw on the experiences to help me out this coming week.”
He credits his work with Shawn Hester of Charles River Country Club for improving his tee shots.
As far as the difference between the purses on the PGA Tour and the Web.com Tour, Oppenheim knows the score. He received a sponsor’s exemption to play in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am this year from Massachusetts native and Pebble Beach CEO Bill Perocchi.
Oppenheim tied for eighth and took home $216,000, earning another PGA Tour start the following week at the Genesis Open.
Even though the two tournaments also prevented him from playing Web. com events those weeks and helped put him in his current precarious position, the experience was worth it. Before the Pebble Beach event, he went to Houston to witness the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history. He then had Perocchi as his partner in the pro-am and had Patriots coach Bill Belichick in his foursome for three days.
“I wouldn’t trade anything for that experience to play at Pebble,” Oppenheim said. “To have the week it was, to go to the Super Bowl, then play with Bill Perocchi and coach Belichick. No matter what happened, that was an experience I’ll never forget.
“You can just tell how much (Belichick) loves football. At times, I didn’t want to ask about football or keep it away from football, but he was very open and very responsive about anything I asked him. It doesn’t get any better than the greatest coach of all-time to talk football with him right after winning the Super Bowl. He was a rock star there. Everyone loved him.”
His experience at Pebble Beach also proved that regular players on the Web.com Tour can be successful with the bigger names.
Oppenheim’s quest to get back on the PGA Tour full-time continues today in Oregon.