By Brian Wacker, PGATOUR.COM LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. --
Nearly two decades ago, the Children’s Miracle Network
Hospitals Classic, known then as the Walt Disney World/Oldsmobile
Classic, was the site of Jeff Maggert’s first career victory
on the PGA TOUR. Now he’s just hoping to keep his card. At
122nd on the money list coming into this week, this is an important
tournament for the 48-year-old. He’ll turn 49 in February and
would like to be fully exempt for next season before becoming
eligible for the Champions Tour in 2014. “As long as
I’m fully exempt out here I’ll probably weight my
schedule more to the regular TOUR, but I will kind of go back and
forth,” Maggert said Tuesday. “There’s a big
discrepency between [Champions Tour] prize money and [PGA TOUR]
money. The regular TOUR has really jumped ahead. If you can play
well on this tour, from an economic standpoint you have to win 4-5
times on the [Champions Tour] to boost your earnings compared to
what can you make on the regular TOUR.” Eventually, however,
as Maggert points out, you can’t fight time. “Year
after year, it gets harder to compete,” he said. Maggert just
hopes he has at least one more fully exempt year to do so.