Insider: Clutch Rutledge eager to get 2012 started

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Jim Rutledge made the most of his opportunities on Tour in 2011, and will have more in 2012 after earning exempt status at q-school.

Jim Rutledge's resume includes some significant facts but none more revealing than this:

The veteran Canadian led the Champions Tour in Final-Round Scoring Average (69.00) in 2011.

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Rutledge made the most of his opportunities, playing 16 times, four as an open qualifier. He'll approach his Champions Tour career from another angle in 2012. Rutledge of Victoria, B.C., shared runner-up honors at the Champions Tour National Qualifying Tournament.

Rutledge and Gary Hallberg finished behind medalist Jeff Freeman, a club professional at the Country Club of Orlando, to earn exempt status for 2012.

"It's like a breath of fresh air for me," said Rutledge, 52. "I couldn't wait to turn 50. I'm keen to get out there. I wish we could start tomorrow but five or six weeks at home, it's fine. It's home. It's Christmas."

As an open qualifier for the 2011 Allianz Championship, his first start of the year, Rutledge tied for sixth, a career-best effort on the Champions Tour. He shot a final round 5-under-par 67.

He Monday-qualified again at the Dick's Sporting Goods Open and used a final-round 67 to finish T10 at En-Joie Golf Club. On the final day of the Boeing Classic, Rutledge shot 65.

At the Qualifying Tournament, he shot a third-round 9-under 62 on the Champions Course at TPC Scottsdale, the low score of the tournament. Then he closed with 68 to secure his spot.

If you're seeing a trend, that's as it should be. That 69.00 scoring average at crunch time says it all.

Rutledge attributes the final-round successes to a greater familiarity with the courses at that point in a tournament. As a conditional player, he has little history with many of the courses on the Champions Tour. He believes that once he gets into a tournament and plays a few rounds, it breeds the kind of insights and knowledge about the course that he needs to be at his best.

As an exempt player, he'll be able to ratchet up his preparations by arriving at venues early and playing practice rounds with the knowledge that he will be in the field instead of dealing with the uncertainty of trying to qualify on Monday.

Mike Weir, a fellow Canadian, knows all about Rutledge's game.

"I think now that he has secured his status, he can go and play some Jim Rutledge golf -- he's going to have a great year, I predict," Weir wrote recently on his blog.

"Jim Rutledge golf" is all about driving the ball long and straight to set up scoring opportunities with solid ball-striking.

Rutledge was fourth on the Champions Tour in 2011 in driving distance at 287.6 yards and No. 2 in the Total Driving statistic behind only Tom Lehman. Rutledge was No. 4 in the Ballstriking category behind Lehman, Russ Cochran and Hal Sutton.

For Rutledge, the Monday qualifiers allowed him to get into the proper frame of mind.

"The good thing about Monday qualifiers, for me, is it got you focused right away," he said. "They're cut-throat. Either you're in or you're out. It's been a good way to get me up-and-running. I want to play as much as I can prior to the tournaments.

"I get comfortable with the golf course, know where all the pins are going to be. I played Dick's the prior year so I had some knowledge of it."

For Rutledge, those insights gained have proven to be indispensable.

Rutledge is the second Canadian in two years to gain exempt status on the Champions Tour. He follows in the footsteps of Rod Spittle. Their paths didn't cross often during the years. Spittle didn't play professional golf, choosing instead a business career before venturing out to the Champions Tour.

"He was on one coast and I was on another," said Rutledge, who is from Canada's westernmost province. "He had a totally different path. But he was one of the very first who came up to me and said, 'If there's anything you need to know, any help you need, just give me a call.'"

Rutledge would like very much to follow Spittle in another respect -- to the winner's circle. With his driving game intact, to get there Rutledge knows he has to work on the short game.

"Obviously, I have been driving the ball pretty well the last couple of years," he said. "It really helps -- you can be aggressive. The bottom line, everybody will say, is the short game, from 100 yards in."