While the competitive golf season may be over for most Coloradans who take part in such events, Doug Rohrbaugh of Carbondale hopes to have a November to remember by playing in three 72-hole tournaments in the next 2 1/2 weeks.
Two of those events are definitely in the cards, barring the unforeseen. And the third will depend on how this week’s tournament plays out.
Rohrbaugh — the 2013 HealthOne Colorado Senior Open champion, and the winner of the last two Colorado PGA Professional Championships — will compete in a Champions Tour regional qualifying tournament this week in Murrieta, Calif. The event, one of three scheduled around the country, runs Tuesday through Friday and features a field of 51 competitors.
If Rohrbaugh, the head professional at Ironbridge Golf Club in Glenwood Springs, is among the top finishers (the exact number will be determined on Tuesday), he’ll earn a spot in the final stage of Champions Tour qualifying, set for Nov. 18-21 in Winter Garden, Fla. The top five finishers there will be fully exempt on the 2015 Champions Tour, with the next seven having conditional status.
And in between the regionals and finals of Champions Q-school, Rohrbaugh is scheduled to play in the Senior PGA Professional National Championship Nov. 13-16 in Port St. Lucie, Fla.
That’s what you call cramming a lot of tournament golf into a short time frame.
Rohrbaugh made it to the final stage of Champions Q-school last year, but fell short of earning a card by placing 48th.
Rohrbaugh will be one of five Coloradans competing in Champions Tour regional qualifying this week. Tom Carricato of Highlands Ranch will also be in Murrieta, while Sam Chapman of Parker and Mike Musgrave of Fort Collins will play in Montgomery, Texas, where 53 are in the field, and Dean Sessions of Westminster will be in Winter Garden, Fla., where 75 are scheduled to play.
Among the others competing in regionals are former Washington Redskins quarterback Mark Rypien, who won the American Century Celebrity Golf Championship this year; five-time PGA Tour winner Blaine McCallister; two-time Colorado Open champion Jim Blair; and Steve Schneiter, who qualified for the 2014 U.S. Senior Open in Colorado this year.
A couple of players with strong Colorado ties are exempt into the final stage of Champions Tour qualifying — 1996 U.S. Open champion and Colorado Sports Hall of Famer Steve Jones, and onetime Champions Tour winner Gary Hallberg of Parker. Former Colorado Open champ Willie Wood also falls into that category.
