When the Web.com Tour made its final appearance in Athens earlier this year, two veteran tour players from Atlanta were competing in the tournament with their eyes on somewhat uncertain futures.
Both Billy Andrade and Scott Dunlap were approaching their 50th birthdays, with Andrade focused on the 2014 Champions Tour and Dunlap uncertain about where he would be playing in 2014.
When Andrade turns 50 in late January, his career as a professional golfer will essentially resume after a four-year hiatus. Andrade played just a handful of PGA Tour events in 2010, ’11 and ’12, and made a few more tune-up appearances on the Web.com Tour this year to prepare himself for the Champions Tour
Dunlap turned 50 in August, but things weren’t any different for him at the time than they’ve been for the past decade. Dunlap was still toiling on the Web.com Tour, with hopes of returning to the PGA Tour in 2014, but was unable to play his way back into golf’s major leagues one last time.
Unlike Andrade, who has career earnings of almost $12.5 million and four PGA Tour victories, Dunlap had no guarantee of significant status on the Champions Tour. He wasn’t sure if he would be playing with his contemporaries in 2014 or facing another season competing against players as young as half his age.
After a successful first experience at Q-school for seniors (see story, page 23), Dunlap will join Andrade as a rookie on the Champions Tour in 2014, with both hoping to approximate the success of 2013 rookie Gene Sauers of Savannah, who revived his playing career this past season.
Dunlap and Andrade have taken very different paths to their current destinations. While Dunlap has been grinding away on the Web.com Tour – with a brief return to the PGA Tour in 2012 – Andrade had been concentrating more in recent years on his broadcast duties with the Golf Channel.
That changed for Andrade after the 2012 season, as he stepped away from his budding career as a TV golf analyst/reporter to focus on his return to a playing role.
“I’ve quit doing TV,” Andrade said during his appearance in the Stadion Classic at UGA. “I did it for three years and enjoyed it, but you can’t go halfway. To do what I want to do, I can’t do TV.”
Andrade says his work on TV broadcasts with the Golf Channel, “was different than I expected. It was harder than I expected. But I feel like I got pretty good the last couple of years. And I got to see a different side of golf.
“It was a fun experience. I can’t thank Golf Channel enough for giving me the opportunity.”
Andrade played four events on the Web.com Tour this year, thanks to the PGA Tour instituting a category that enables players age 48 or 49 to play in preparation for the Champions Tour.
“It’s been three years since I’ve played full time,” Andrade said. “You’ve got to take baby steps to get back into competition. You can’t just turn a switch on.”
In his early season stops on the Web.com Tour, Andrade made the cut in Athens after failing to advance to the weekend the week before in Valdosta. He said the “number one thing” he was looking to accomplish was to “get back into a scoring mode. Shooting good scores take time, especially chipping and touch shots.”
The last full season on tour for Andrade was 2008, when he finished a lowly 193rd on the PGA Tour money list. From 1989 to 2006, Andrade was a successful, if slightly inconsistent PGA Tour member. He finished as high as 14th on the money list in 1991 when he scored his first two victories in consecutive weeks.
Andrade’s third and fourth wins came in 1998 in Canada and 2000 in Las Vegas, and he remained a solid player through the ’06 season. Andrade was known for most of his career as one of the best putters in the game, and when his skill on the greens began to slip in his early 40s, Andrade’s status fell with it.
The style of play on the Champions Tour is more favorable to that of Andrade.
“I like my chances” among the over-50 crowd, Andrade says, but readily admits, “You better be ready to play when you get out there.”
Andrade’s 2013 season took a surprise turn in July when he tied for 5th in the second-tier PGA Tour event in Mississippi. Andrade shot 66-67-65 the last three rounds and tied for 5th, just three shots out of a playoff. It was his first made cut on the PGA Tour since 2009 and his first top 10 since ’06, and provided him with the realization that his dormant game may be ready to revive when he joins the Champions Tour early next year.
While Andrade prepared for his return to full time competitive golf in 2014 with a limited schedule, Dunlap was grinding his way through a series of tournaments, unsure of where he would be playing next year.
Midway through the 2013 season, Dunlap was in position to return to the PGA Tour at the age of 50. With three top-6 finishes and two other top 20s, Dunlap was among the top 25 money winners at the Web.com Tour’s halfway point, but missed seven of his last 10 cuts.
Dunlap had a second chance to earn his 2014 PGA Tour card in the four-tournament series that concluded the Web.Com regular season, but played well in only one of the four events.
After placing 51st on the money list this season with earnings of $95,000, Dunlap is exempt for the Web.com Tour next year. But after earning exempt status on the Champions Tour, the lure of competing in no-cut events with significantly larger purses against players who aren’t hitting it 20 or 30 yards past him off the tee will be hard to turn down.
Despite a distance disadvantage and his annual struggles with the putter, Dunlap enjoyed another solid season on the Web.com Tour, where he has played every season since 2003. This was his 13th year on the tour, including its inaugural season in 1990 when it was known as the Ben Hogan Tour. His finish on the money list was the third highest of his career, and his best since 2008, when he wound up 37th in earnings after capturing his second title on what was then the Nationwide Tour.
In addition to his long stretch on the Web.com Tour, Dunlap also has seven full seasons as a PGA Tour member, most recently in 2012, after he enjoyed a rare successful experience in the 2011 finals of Q school.
“I’m trying to get back to the PGA Tour,” Dunlap said during his appearance in the Stadion Classic at UGA. “If I return there, it would be unbelievable.”
Dunlap had serious hopes of finishing in the top 25 on the money list and earning a spot on the 2013-14 PGA Tour after a fast start, but did not play as well the second half.
As he usually does, Dunlap enjoyed much of his success outside the U.S., beginning the year with a tie for 4th in the season-opening event in Panama, and tying for 6th a little over a month later in Brazil. He added another T6 in early June in the Washington, D.C., area, but had just two productive weeks after that and gradually slipped down the money list.
Dunlap has been a world traveler since his early days as a tour player, and is one of a relative handful of Americans who has thrived playing outside the U.S.
Prior to joining the PGA Tour in 1996, Dunlap had won events on the Canadian, South African, and South American tours, and his 2008 victory in Panama gave him tournament titles in six countries outside the U.S. His lone American victory came in 2004 in northern California on the Nationwide Tour.
“I like going to different places,” Dunlap says of his success around the world. “I don’t like the same old humdrum routine.”
By qualifying for the Champions Tour, Dunlap will get to visit new cities and new courses in 2014, but will be playing some familiar venues, including TPC Sugarloaf near his home in Duluth, where he tied for 6th in 2005 after playing his way into the tournament in a Monday qualifier.
Dunlap established himself as a solid player on the PGA Tour in 1999 and 2000 with a penchant for playing particularly well in some high profile events. He recorded several top-10 finishes in the Canadian Open in the ‘90s, his first prior to becoming a PGA Tour member. He also qualified for the ’98 British Open and finished in the top 30 while competing on the Nike Tour in the U.S., and has made the annual trek across the ocean to attempt to qualify for the event ever since.
The following year, Dunlap tied for 10th in the British Open at Carnoustie, part of a season in which he tied for 3rd at Doral and for 7th in the Canadian Open.
Dunlap came back with the best season of his career in 2000, tying for 3rd in the Players and making a serious run in the PGA Championship before a difficult last day dropped him into a tie for 10th.
But after a disappointing 2002 season, Dunlap was back in golf’s version of baseball’s Class AAA, and remained there for a decade before his brief return in 2012.
Dunlap has made a decent living as a tour pro by relying on his ball striking. He is not long off the tee, especially in comparison to the modern generation bombers, and has never been an accomplished putter. This year he ranked in the top 25 on the Web.com Tour in fairways hit and 35th in greens in regulation, but was well outside the top 100 in both driving distance and one of the main putting stats.
“The courses are getting longer, but if I do what I can do, that will be good enough,’ Dunlap says.
While Andrade will be making his Champions Tour debut in 2014, Dunlap got a brief taste of his professional life after 50 when he qualified for the final regular season event of the 2013 season in San Antonio.
Dunlap turned in a solid effort, tying for 15th to earn $32,300, almost one-third of what he earned in 22 starts on the 2013 Web.com Tour.