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PGA TOUR: Baryla making a name for himself -- the hard way

/noticias.info/ By Dave Lagarde
PGATOUR.com Contributor

Have to hand it to Chris Baryla.

For a guy who started 2006 with status limited to the Canadian Tour, he’s having a heck of a season -- on the Nationwide Tour.

Baryla has done it the hard way, earning every last red cent of his total of $97,848 through a series of sterling silver Monday qualifying rounds or an eye-popping run of top 25s that provided him with a free pass into the next event.

Matter of fact, that’s precisely how the 23-year-old native of Vernon, British Columbia, wiggled into this week’s Mark Christopher Charity Classic in Rancho Cucamonga, Ca. He did it by finishing solo fourth in the Oregon Classic Presented by Kendall Automotive Group, a tournament where, ironically, he failed to gain one of the 14 Monday qualifying spots for only the second time in eight attempts.

“I missed by one so I decided to take the week off and visit my parents,’’ Baryla said. “Then I got a call Wednesday. They had a bunch of withdrawals and had run out of alternates. Turned out they needed someone.’’

Talk about seizing the moment. Baryla high-tailed it back to Oregon from western Canada, strung together rounds of 69-70-68-68 and finished four shots out of a playoff between champion Cliff Kresge and Ricky Barnes.

“I played well and it worked out,’’ said Baryla, whose earnings for the week bumped him 13 places to 50th on the money list.

The money jump left Baryla mastering the possibilities with four full-field tournaments and the Nationwide Tour Championship at The Houstonian remaining on the schedule. If he protects his position -- and he has a $13,059 cushion -- inside the top 60, he gains entry into the Tour Championship at The Houstonian with its $750,000 purse, the biggest of the 2006 season. What’s more, he’ll earn exempt status on the Tour in 2007. If he makes another significant move and climbs inside the top 35 – he needs $31,047 to get there now – he’ll bypass the dangerous second stage of PGA TOUR Qualifying School and head to the finals.

“That’s doable without a win,’’ he said. “Getting passed the second stage would be fantastic. But I have to keep my nose to the grindstone. I have to keep playing well.’’

Then there is the biggest carrot of all. Baryla would love nothing more than to follow in the footsteps of players like Camilo Villegas, Eric Axley and Vaughn Taylor, who began recent Nationwide Tour seasons without any status but played well enough to earn privileges on the PGA TOUR the following year.

Put it this way. Baryla thinks he can, considering the size of his waves of confidence and momentum that he has been riding since March, when the Canadian Tour member decided to give the Nationwide Tour’s Monday qualifying a shot at the Livermore Valley Wine Country Classic.

“That’s the beauty of this Tour,’’ he said of the Nationwide Tour. “It doesn’t hold you back. It gives you opportunities. If you’re a good player you can break through.’’

So first time out on a Monday in California in late March, Baryla posts the lowest number among 300 wannabes, one of the four times -- in eight tries -- he led the Monday field. Then he backed up with a tie for ninth. He was off and running.

“That was huge for me,’’ he said of the entire week. “I answered a lot of questions. Just shooting the low round in qualifying was a boost. Then to top 10, that pushed my confidence sky high.’’

And it convinced Baryla that Monday qualifying was the way to go to reach his goal of playing on the PGA TOUR.

“I thought, Why wait around for Q-school? I feel like that is a crap shoot,’’ he said. “I felt compelled to go for it.’’

Safe to say Baryla has come a long way since he was introduced to golf by his late grandfather George and his father Paul. He was 15 when he decided to seriously pursue golf rather than the plethora of team sports he played.

“I didn’t need anyone else to practice,’’ he said of golf. “And it seemed like a nice lifestyle.’’

Baryla did not attract much attention as a junior golfer, but nevertheless was offered a scholarship to the University of Texas El Paso. His game blossomed near the border. As a junior he qualified for the U.S. Open and played well in the Canadian Open. The seed germinated.

“I thought golf just might be viable,’’ he said.

Change “might’’ to “is’’ and that’s where Baryla fits in today. After all, he has had to fight for everything he has achieved this year. It has been a wonderful ride, with the best moment coming when he finished solo fourth in the Legend Financial Group Classic Presented by Cynergies Solutions. That put him over the $71,000 barrier he needed to achieve Nationwide Tour status. But Baryla did not celebrate. He’ll bide his time until he achieves something more significant.

“I’m waiting for a win,’’ he said. notas_de_prensa_archivo