Time running out for Aussie golfers

Robert Allenby, Stuart Appleby and Geoff Ogilvy are safe, Matt Jones is getting more nervous by the week while Jason Day is praying for a miracle.

Crunch time is looming for those Australians on the US PGA Tour who hope to retain their playing rights for 2009 by finishing in the top 125 on the money list.

Just four events remain for players hovering around the cutoff line to secure their immediate future.

Similarly, on the secondary Nationwide Tour, a group of Australian players are guaranteed a promotion to the main circuit while one or two will have to virtually rely on an unlikely victory for an upgrade to first class.

A dozen Australians, led by Allenby who is ranked 12th on the US PGA Tour money list despite not winning, are guaranteed playing rights for next year.

But Sydney’s Matt Jones and Queenslander Jason Day are sweating on their results this week and the closing three tournaments of the year.

Allenby has been kept aloft by a slew of top-10 finishes but remains frustrated by a seven-year winless drought.

He leads the Australians on the money list from Ogilvy, who is 14th, followed by Appleby (20) Adam Scott, who has slid all the way down to 36th, Rod Pampling (44), Mathew Goggin (46), Aaron Baddeley (51), Nick O’Hern (72), Peter Lonard (73), John Senden (76), Steve Elkington (77) and Nathan Green (101).

Matt Jones has straddled the all-important 125 number from 124 last week to a ranking of 126 this week and is clinging on to the hope his rookie year won’t end in a return to the Nationwide tour in 2009.

Jones has $US712,360 ($A1.1 million) in prizemoney to date but has missed six of his past eight cuts and has made just four cuts since April.

Jason Day, the promising 20-year-old from Queensland, may now well be regretting his youthful but rash aim of “taking down” Tiger Woods, a man who is second on the money list after playing just six tournaments (and winning four) behind Vijay Singh who has played 23.
Day is ranked 130, missed two of his past three cuts and has only one top-20 finish since April.

It is a dismal end to what appeared to be a promising year when he finished sixth in his fourth event of the season, the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am in January.

There has been a lot more frenzied activity among the Australian contingent on the Nationwide Tour as players jostle for a top-25 finish which would give them a main tour card.

Burly Victorian Jarrod Lyle had his return ticket to the main tour in the bank early when he won the Mexico Open and the Knoxville Open.

Lyle remains second on the money list with $US373,845 ($A574,800) behind South African leader Brendon de Jonge.

Another US PGA Tour refugee, former Australian Open champion Greg Chalmers, will also be back among the courtesy cars and leather-clad locker rooms next year as he is currently third behind Lyle.

Sydney’s Aron Price is safe in 15th spot after winning one tournament and following up with a pair of top-10 finishes.

But Melbourne’s Marc Leishman made the most dramatic leap when he rocketed from 56th spot to 19th on the money list with a record-equalling 11-shot victory in the WNB Golf Classic last week.

Ewan Porter from New South Wales made an impressive start to the Nationwide season when he clinched the Moonah Classic in Victoria by seven shots but his game has since been gathering rust.

He is in 33rd place on the back of that win and will need a serious result very quickly if he is to make the step into the leading 25.

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