Tracy can relax with card in hand
As afternoon turned to evening Sunday at the Web. com Tour’s Portland Open at Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club, Ethan Tracy’s nervousness turned into excitement.
Despite missing the cut, the Hilliard Darby alum managed to finish the tournament
and Web.com Tour regular season 24th on the money list at $161,211. It meant he had claimed one of the final spots in The 25, or the group of 25 Web.com Tour players to automatically earn their PGA Tour cards for next season.
“There was still one scenario that could have happened when maybe there were four or five groups left that could have pushed me out,” said Tracy, 27. “It was kind of an unlikely event, but I was nervous all the way up until then.”
Earning his tour card early means the pressure will be off for Tracy during the Web. com Tour Finals. The four-tournament playoff, which begins Thursday at the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship at the Ohio State Scarlet Course, will result in an additional 25 players being awarded PGA Tour cards.
Free; print tickets at ncc-golf.com
Golf Channel will air parts of all rounds; 3-6 p.m. today, noon-2 p.m. Friday, 1-3 p.m. Saturday, 6-8 p.m. Sunday
Instead, the tournament is a chance for Tracy, who won the Club Colombia Championship in February but has made one cut in his past eight Web.com Tour starts, to build some momentum on a course where he has some history.
In 2008, as a senior at Darby, he tied for second in the Division I state championship at Scarlet. Less than nine years later, he’ll take the same course with the comfort of knowing he already has a PGA Tour card in hand.
“I haven’t played too great the last couple months, only making
one cut, but my game’s improving and I feel good about that and just looking forward to getting on a familiar golf course and having fun out here,” he said. “It’s been a steady climb to get to this point, and now I think I’m more experienced and I have the ability to play at the next level, definitely.”
Two players with ties to central Ohio enter the Web.com Tour Finals hoping to retain their PGA Tour cards. Players who finish between 126th and 150th in the FedEx Cup standings receive conditional status on the PGA Tour, which they can improve by performing well in the Web.com Tour Finals.
Watterson alum Kyle Reifers, 33, enters the finals sitting 154th in the FedEx Cup standings. Reifers and Tracy will tee off in the same group at 7:52 a.m. Thursday.
Ohio State alumnus and Akron native Ryan Armour, 41, is 159th in the FedEx Cup standings and will likewise play in the Web.com
Tour Finals to try to keep his tour card, a process he has been through a few times in his professional golf career.
“I don’t know if you enjoy it, but you accept it and say, ‘Hey, this is what it is,’ ” Armour said. “Unfortunately, I’ve had to go through it many times, but it’s just golf and once you kind of get going it just becomes a golf tournament.”
Armour’s last few tournaments have gone well. A coach, Jason Carbone, made a tweak to his putting stroke and he has since made four straight cuts, including finishing in a tie for fourth at the Wyndham Championship earlier this month.
A Jack Nicklaus redesign 11 years ago means Armour doesn’t have as much of an advantage on the Scarlet Course as he used to, but he said he’s always happy to return.
“I love being here,” he said. “Part of me never left.”