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By Bruce Berlet
Special to PGATOUR.com

CROMWELL, Conn. -- If Angel Cabrera was a longshot winner at the U.S. Open, consider Jeff Brehaut.

Brehaut arrived at Oakmont Country Club to play in his first major championship ever having missed six cuts on the PGA TOUR and two more on the Nationwide Tour this year. His only check was for $1,700 after a tie for 48th at the Nationwide Tour event in Louisiana.

Jeff Brehaut now sits 185th in the FedExCup standings. (WireImage)

FEDEXCUP CLIMBERS

At last week's U.S. Open, Jeff Brehaut played himself into contention for the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup. See who else made big moves.  • Complete story,  click here

Brehaut had lost track of the number of regional and sectional qualifiers he had tried since his first visit to the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach -- to watch, in 1982 -- but he made it to western Pennsylvania by three shots.

When he did finally qualify, Brehaut wondered how he could afford four hotel rooms for his family and relatives. Thanks to longtime friend and former TOUR pro Bob Friend, an Oakmont member, Brehaut got a five-bedroom house within walking distance of the course. Then the partying began. Brehaut's father-in-law celebrated his birthday the Sunday before the U.S. Open. Brehaut's father, Gene, celebrated on Tuesday. Brehaut celebrated his own 44th birthday the day a record eighth national championship started at Oakmont.

The house was filled with Brehaut's wife and two children, as well as his parents, in-laws and brother -- those who had stuck with the quintessential journeyman through too many golfing outposts to remember.

"It was cool," Brehaut said. "I had all that family karma working and was really happy to play well and give them something to sink their teeth into."

Brehaut shot 13-over-par 293, which might normally earn him pocket change, if that. Not at Oakmont. He tied for 17th and earned $102,536 and renewed confidence entering the new Travelers Championship, which begins today at the TPC at River Highlands.

And Brehaut finished with a flourish, a 30-foot birdie putt.

"Once it got over a ridge, it went slow down the hill, and the crowd roar kept building," Brehaut recalled with a smile. "They went nuts when it went in. It'll be a memory I'll have forget.

"Tiger would have paid a lot of money for that putt, I promise you that. I would have gladly sold it to him."

Woods' miss from a similar distance Sunday left him in a tie for second with Jim Furyk, one shot behind Cabrera.

Still, it seemed light years for Brehaut since he needed 13 tries to get through qualifying school at age 35.

"My journey is unlike most of the guys," Brehaut said.

Brehaut's first sporting goal was to follow in the footsteps of John Brodie and play quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers. It wasn't until a slightly built Brehaut got carried off the football field on a stretcher when he was a high school freshman that he decided being a QB was out of his future.

Brehaut caddied for his father and became serious about golf at 14 when he started playing at Los Altos Country Club in California with several buddies.

"We did it all day long until the sun went down," Brehaut said.

Brehaut also became friends with Los Altos pro Brian Inkster and his wife, Juli, who is now in the World Golf Hall of Fame. Brehaut steadily progressed and turned pro in 1986, but he has had a rocky road. He occasionally considered quitting while bouncing between the mini-tours, PGA TOUR and Nationwide Tour, where he played in the Nationwide Tour Championship six straight years.

Brehaut reached bottom in 2000, when he had shoulder surgery and didn't make a cut on the PGA TOUR and just three on the Nationwide Tour. He has made five more trips to qualifying school and had a career year in 2005, when he won nearly $1.3 million and had his best finish on the PGA TOUR, third in The INTERNATIONAL.

The resilient Brehaut lost his card again last year but remained upbeat and was finally rewarded last week. His breakout at Oakmont came in "a weird year" in which he has been as low as 14th alternate in a PGA TOUR event and hasn't learned if he's going to be able to play until Tuesday. By then, he's wondering if he should take off for the Nationwide Tour.

"I haven't been able to play as much as I'd like, and getting in at the last minute doesn't make it as comfortable as I'd like," said Brehaut, who was 10th alternate for the Travelers Championship and got the word he was in Monday night. "But I made my bed last year by finishing where I finished [139th on the money list], so I have to find a way to get a little more ready to play when I get in tournaments.

"It's been frustrating because when I have gotten in, I haven't been ready to play. That has been the challenge. But now I'm on the FedEx Cup and money lists and can kind of see where I need to be. I've got a little new life."

Brehaut has missed the cut in five of six starts at the TPC River Highlands but shot a 6-under 64 in the final round in 2005 that gave him a tie for 12th and $87,075.

"I like this course," Brehaut said. "It's one where you think, 'I can play this course.' It's not extremely difficult, but the scores are never really low. Then there are some courses that you think are really hard and wonder how guys are shooting 67s and 68s. It's just kind of 'horses for courses,' but you have to learn the ones that don't seem that difficult or the scores aren't that low."

Could he catch more lightning in a bottle this week?

"I'm just hoping to take what I did last week and build on it, turn it into the start of the rest of the year," Brehaut said. "I haven't really been playing terrible golf, but I just haven't been scoring very well. There's a fine line. It's that one chip, that one bad shot that makes a double bogey that ruins your round.

"You can play OK golf and score well lots of times. There are plenty of times where I've had my best stuff and missed a cut. And there are plenty of times where I look back at my best tournaments and say I didn't hit the ball that great, but I did all the little things and all of a sudden the game gets easy. That's what the best players are doing all the time, and you ask, 'How does Tiger Woods do that virtually every week?'

"Most of us are trying to find lightning in a bottle, and hopefully I found mine last week."