Every shot matters on the PGA Tour

• By Ryan Lavner
• Nov 10, 2012 1:05 PM ET

Every shot matters.

Over the course of a season, PGA Tour players will remind us that they need to just go out and “play one shot at a time,” and afterward might lament that they “left a few out there,” and that throughout the day there were a couple of “loose shots” or “lapses in concentration” and, well, if a few more putts had fallen, “it could have been a really low round.”

Normally, that’s just players-speak during a 72-hole tournament, a convenient and clichéd response when a voice recorder is stuffed in their face.

Not this week.

Entering the season-ending Children’s Miracle Network Classic, the final stop on the PGA Tour schedule, only $7,318 separates Nos. 123-127 on the money list. Yes, just $7,318 – the difference between grinding and pure glee, between the Web.com and PGA Tours, between Q-School and courtesy cars. That blade-of-Bermuda grass thin.

Maybe every shot really does matter.

So, with a tip of the cap to Golf Channel’s research department, here are the bubble boys who wish they really could have those one or two shots back – the guys who actually did leave a few out there:

No. 124 Rod Pampling ($620,893 in 25 starts): Remember the Farmers Insurance Open? Quick summary: Kyle Stanley collapses, Brandt Snedeker steals the title. Well, in the second round at Torrey Pines, Pampling missed a par putt from just outside 4 feet. He eventually shot 75 that day.

It seemed innocuous at the time, of course, but had he made that putt, had he shot 74, he would have earned $201,000 instead of $162,000 (T-8) that week. It was the 43-year-old’s first and only top 10 of the season, and just his third in the past three years.

Why is that a big deal? Because that extra $39,000 he could have earned in San Diego would have provided him more of a cushion over No. 125 entering this week’s season finale – from just less than $1,000 to more than $40,000. This time of year, that slight bump makes a huge difference.

No. 125 Billy Mayfair ($619,961 in 27 starts): The 46-year-old’s best tournament of the year was the RBC Heritage, where he shot 67-69 on the weekend to finish T-4. His next-best finish in 2012 was a T-12 in the Mayakoba Classic, an event played opposite the WGC-Cadillac Championship, so the $250,000 paycheck went a long way.

But on the final day at Hilton Head, Kevin Stadler made an 8-foot birdie putt on the 18^th hole that dropped Mayfair into a share of fourth place. Had Mayfair finished alone in fourth, he would have earned $22,800 more and would sit in 123^th place on the money list entering the Disney event. Thanks a lot, Stads.

No. 127 Gary Christian ($616,457 in 27 events): His first year on Tour could eventually be marred by two miscues about a month apart.

First, let’s go to the 15^th hole at TPC River Highlands, host of the Travelers Championship. In the third round, Christian rinsed his tee shot on the short par 4 en route to a double bogey. (The other three rounds, he made two birdies and a par on that hole.) Had Christian not found the water with that tee shot – had the 41-year-old just made par! – he would have finished 11^th, not 18^th, and earned $51,600 more that week.

Next, at the RBC Canadian Open, he missed a 4-foot par putt on the par-3 eighth hole in the third round. It was his only bogey over the final 36 holes, during which he shot 65-66 and finished T-10. Had he made par, he would have finished T-7, earned an extra $37,050, and the Englishman would have been inside the top 125 bubble entering this week’s season finale. Poor bloke.

No. 128 Alexandre Rocha ($605,117 in 20 events): His best chance to win this season came at the Reno-Tahoe Open, which uses the Modified Stableford scoring system. Worth points or strokes, it mattered little – in the third round, Rocha missed a 3-foot par putt on the 17^th hole to lose a point. Alas, one point, in fact, would become the eventual margin of victory, with J.J. Henry hoisting the trophy.

So instead of beginning his 2013 season in the winners-only event in Kapalua, Rocha is scrapping for his Tour card at Disney, where dreams either really do come true … or they’re mercilessly crushed in front of thousands of fans.

No. 129 Bill Lunde ($593,598 in 24 events): Tour players rarely miss from inside 3 feet. Yet Lunde missed a shorty during the third round of the Farmers Insurance Open, costing him $59,333 in potential prize money (or the difference between T-8 and his eventual T-13). The rub: Had he converted that tiddler, Lunde would have been No. 123 on the money list entering this week. That $1million Kodak Challenge bonus can’t last forever, you know.

No. 130 D.J. Trahan ($587,407 in 26 events): Phoenix Open, final day, opening hole. Trahan, a two-time Tour winner, missed a par putt from 4 feet, 6 inches. Had that putt fallen, had he made par instead of dropping a shot, he would have finished 13 under for the week, good for a two-way tie for third, good for an extra $61,000 in prize money. Which means that he would have been 123^rd on the money list entering this week. Which means that he wouldn’t have been in imminent danger of losing his Tour card.