ATLANTA, Ga. -- He’s not quite like his uncle, Dana, but Brett Quigley comes pretty darn close.

Dana Quigley once went nine years without missing a golf tournament, playing 264 straight events on the Champions Tour. And when the PGA TOUR season concludes on Sunday, his nephew will have played 33 of 44 weeks.

“And it was all I could do not to play a few more,” Brett Quigley said, smiling.

This week, of course, is something of a bonus. For the first time in his career, Quigley has qualified for the season-ending TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola at historic East Lake Golf Club.

To gain his spot in the elite field, Quigley finished in the top 30 on the money list for the first time ever. He enters the week 18th with over $2.4 million in earnings -- which is more than double his best previous season on TOUR.

“It's like a Christmas present come early, it really is,” Quigley said Tuesday. “At the start of the year I hadn't really thought about it. I think starting the year my goal was to win a golf tournament.

“Unfortunately, I haven't done that yet, but I've played pretty well along the way. (I’ve) kind just been comfortable, just been confident, and that's kind of snowballed into a great year.”

The 37-year-old veteran has 10 top-10 finishes this year, more than half as many as the 17 he put together in nine previous years combined. Only Jim Furyk and Vijay Singh with 12 each and Tiger Woods with 11 have more top-10s than Quigley this year.

Brett Quigley signs autographs after Tuesday's practice round. (Badz/PGA TOUR/WireImage)

That first win may have been elusive but Quigley’s season-long consistency has landed him a starting time at East Lake. At the same time, there are 12 players who won TOUR events in 2006 who didn’t make the field.

“Someone asked me last week: Would you rather have one win this year or 10 top-10s and me playing in THE TOUR Championship? My thought was a win,” said Quigley, one of 10 TOUR Championship rookies.

“It's funny, my wife and I were talking about it. She said I played much better this year, had a better year having 10 top-10s, having a chance to win and not having done it.”

Quigley has come a long way from the 22-year-old who reached the finals of Q-school in 1991 after graduating from South Carolina. He ended up playing the Nationwide Tour, and in 15 events the following year, he made just $7,518.

Quigley finally made it on TOUR in 1997 after finishing fifth on the Nationwide Tour money list. He finished outside the exempt top 125 in five of his first six seasons. In all, he went to Q-school 10 times and got his card once, in 2002.

“I think I was probably most disappointed my rookie year at Vegas, which was the last tournament, and I finished 128,” Quigley recalled. “I birdied Nos. 13, 14, 15, 16 on Sunday at Vegas and then bogeyed 17 to miss my card. That was probably the most disappointed that I've ever been in golf.”

Even so, Quigley, an Academic All-American at South Carolina, had managed to make a comfortable living on TOUR, earning nearly $5 million before this year. Until the Verizon Heritage, though, 2006 was shaping up to be an average one, at best.

Quigley had played in nine tournaments when he came to Hilton Head, missing five cuts and posting just one top-20 finish, a tie for 16th at the Buick Invitational. A conversation with a tennis pro helped turn things around for Quigley, though.

He met Billy Stern through their mutual friend Brad Faxon. The two talked at length about focusing on each shot -- and then letting them go. Quigley went on to finish fifth at Harbour Town, the first of 10 top-10s in his next 23 events.

“I just got into thinking about playing golf again,” he explained. “I think out here, certainly for me the last few years, I've just gotten away from thinking about winning golf tournaments. I think because I've been down that 75 to 150th guy for so long, for me I've been stuck in a rut and not really -- not playing golf to win tournaments.

“And (at) the beginning of this year, I started thinking about that, and then at Hilton Head it just came together there. As a result, from there on I played pretty darn nice.”

So can Christmas really come early for Quigley this week?

“I think a win this week would be the ultimate,” he said. “Against this field, it definitely would be the ultimate.”