Bader chasing down Tour card
Chasing fully exempt LPGA Tour status down a season’s stretch run is not an unfamiliar assignment for Beth Bader.
The veteran golfer from Eldridge, Iowa, has rallied to claim a card for the next year’s campaign on a couple of occasions.
A few times, she has failed.
Still, Bader sure didn’t expect to find herself chasing a 2009 card on the heels of a career year in 2007.
At 112th on the 2008 money list, she is. Bader finds herself more than 60 spots behind her 46th-place finish of a year ago and, more importantly, 32 spots shy of a full exemption next year.
She will need a big finish, maybe two, in the five final full-field events over the next two months or face the prospect of returning to the Qualifying Tournament for the third time in her eight-year career.
“You always try not to look back at the past year, but it is tougher now, coming off such a great season,’’ Bader said. “I have been in this situation before and I just have to trust that things will work themselves out.’’
On the surface, a balky putter seems to be the blame for Bader’s problems so far this year.
Last year, she finished eighth on tour in total putting. Her average of 29.53 putts per round has her 102nd in 2008.
Bader, though, said that is more a result of short-game struggles than it is putting problems.
“I rely a lot on my short game, and my short game hasn’t been up to standards,’’ she said.
Knowing better chipping and approach shots could be the antidote to a overall stroke average that is more than a shot higher than last year’s 72.33 average, Bader has spent plenty of time working on that aspect of her game.
That only makes her more frustrated with a lack of results.
“I don’t know how many times I have said the word patience, but that is kind of how it is in this game,’’ she said. “And you start losing confidence when you put a lot of work in and it doesn’t pay off.’’
Still, Bader has had hot-stretch runs before, having rallied to keep her card in 2006, 2003 and 2002.
This year, the challenge is a bit tougher because the tour has moved the fully-exempt standard from a top-90 position on the year-end money list to a top-80 finish.
That’s bad news and good news, though. Bader said the change will provide more opportunities to play next year for players who finish between 90th and 110th than it would have in the past.
If need be, of course, Bader won’t hesitate to return to Q-School in hopes of gaining fully exempt status anew.
She rather would get the card secured in the month-and-a-half-long stretch run that starts Sept. 11 in Mobile, Ala.
An off-week follows, so Bader will return to her native Quad-Cities on Sept. 18 to help host the fifth annual Susan L. Bader Memorial Golf Outing at Springbrook Country Club in DeWitt.
She said this year’s affair will be a little more low-key, with Bader as the only LPGA Tour player in attendance at the event that raises money for pancreatic research in the memory of her late mother.
“It’s just a difficult time of year to get all the girls to come back,’’ Bader said, adding a nearly full field is expected nonetheless. “People are there because they want to be there, no matter if I bring five girls back or just myself.’’
Craig DeVrieze can be contacted at (563) 333-2610 or cdevrieze@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at qctimes.com.