Good showing now could mean more starts in 2009 for Molder

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Bryce Molder is looking to build momentum heading into next season.

LA QUINTA, Calif. -- There are those who might say Bryce Molder is a glutton for punishment.

After all, he's already got his TOUR card for 2009. Yet Molder has come to the sun-drenched southern California desert this week to make his first appearance in the annual torture test that is the PGA TOUR National Qualifying Tournament.

The way Molder sees it, though, it's all part of the job. He may have earned his third trip to the big leagues when he finished 23rd on the Nationwide Tour money list -- but he has the opportunity to improve his position in the TOUR's pecking order with a good performance at PGA West.

Molder is off to a good start in that quest, too. He fired a 67 on Friday and he begins the third round of the 108-hole event at 9 under and in a five-way tie for 11th with Mark Brooks, Jay Williamson, Ted Purdy and Major Manning, one of the first-round co-leaders. They are three strokes off the pace being set by Aussie James Nitties.

The players who earn one of the TOUR cards that go to the low 25 and ties at the end of this week's draining event are in the same eligibility category as Molder and the rest of the Nationwide Tour grads. Players from the two groups are mixed alternately, based on their number in each respective population, so a good finish come Monday could bump Molder up the ladder considerably.

Spencer Levin, who finished one spot above Molder, and No. 25 Ricky Barnes are also attempting to do the same thing.

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If he had finished 15th on the Nationwide Tour money list, Molder says he probably wouldn't have come to q-school. Even at 23rd, "there was still a part of me last week going, gosh, it would be nice to be home," the Scottsdale resident said.

"But it's part of your job -- and it's just a chance to get better."

Molder has another motivation, too. He hasn't exactly been a fast starter of late -- Molder missed five of his first six cuts last year and 10 of 11 to start the 2007 season -- so he'd like to gain some momentum with a good performance at PGA West.

"Some guys play well early. Some guys play well late," Molder said with a shrug. "Some guys called me 'clutch' and I was like, no. I try just as hard at the beginning but I just happened to play well late in the year. And maybe that is it. You get to a point where there's nothing to lose. But it just so happens that's kind of when my best tournaments have been the last three years, really."

In fact, the holidays notwithstanding, Molder says he wouldn't mind finding another tournament to play in between now and the Sony Open in Hawaii, the first full-field event of the 2009 season. "Then it just feels like there really wasn't a break," he said with a smile.

Molder thinks that a top-five finish at q-school could translate into two or three more starts on TOUR next year. Regardless, he knows he is more prepared than in the past when he felt like he not only had to shoot low numbers, he had to make it look good, too.

"I'm more comfortable in my own game," Molder explained. "I know that's the best way for me to play now. I struggled early, or the other times I've been out there, thinking that there's a certain way you're supposed to play. Not only having to shoot well but make it look good and whatever. It really doesn't matter. I think that's why I'm a different player now than I have been in quite a number of years."

For Molder, that means forgetting about statistics and playing more like he did when he was in college at Georgia Tech. He was a four-time first-time All-American -- joining David Duval, Phil Mickelson and Gary Hallberg as the only players to hold that distinction.

"You didn't know how you hit it in college," Molder said. "You didn't know how many greens you hit, how many fairways you hit, how far you hit it, how many putts you had -- all that kind of stuff. You just played. There was only one score that mattered and that was what you shot. I think you can get trapped into all that other stuff. It took a long time for me to say just forget it and play.

"There's just more information out there (on TOUR) and more information for me in golf is just not good. When you start thinking, why am I not playing well? I'm missing fairways. And you go out there and you're through 10 holes and you count, how many fairways. It's stupid. (You should be thinking) what's your score and how are you going to improve on that."