For 56-year-old Jim Rutledge, life has almost come full circle.
The veteran PGA Tour Champions golfer will return to the tour where he first cut his teeth as a professional as he officially accepted a sponsor’s exemption into the Mackenzie Tour stop at Uplands Golf Club two weeks from today.
The man they simply call Rut will tee it up at the Bayview Place Island Savings Open presented by Times Colonist on PGA Tour Canada, which was known as the Canadian Tour in his early years, although it carried various sponsors.
“My first year was 1979 and Glen Meadows was my first one [locally in 1981]. The Victoria Open — that was my first year travelling on the road with John Morgan and Cec Ferguson in what was then the Peter Jackson Tour,” Rutledge recalled on Tuesday at Uplands, his home course.
“Those were my first encounters,” he added. “Fabulous memories; it’s been a good tour. Here we are like 38 years later and we’re playing at home and it’s another Canadian Tour, which is now the Mackenzie Tour.”
And Rutledge, who this season is going through Monday qualifying on the PGA Tour Champions, has tasted plenty of success on Canadian soil.
A lot of the information isn’t in PGA Tour Canada’s databases since it took over this tour, but Rutledge was No. 2 in all-time earnings with $403,384 before the takeover. He won six times, three of them at the B.C. Open in 1979, ’81 and ’89; the 1984 Canadian PGA championship; 1994 Alberta Open; and 1995 P.E.I. Classic. He also topped the field in the 1995 Indian Open as he was a veteran of the Asian Tour.
Rutledge also represented Canada at the 1984, ’85 and 2006 World Cups and the 1993 and ’96 Dunhill Cups.
Now he has back at his home track. “I’m very, very excited to play. The past few years I’ve been exempt on Champions Tour and this tournament always ran up against Des Moines. This year I don’t have that [full playing] status so I’m more than proud to play here,” he said.
And he’s helped draw in fans locally.
“This is big for us,” said local organizer Keith Dagg, who along with tournament director Murray Thomas talked Rutledge — who is still an honorary chairman of this event — into playing. “The name of the game is to get sponsors and when you get big crowds and have a guy like Rutledge, it makes it easier.
“He’s such a good player and a Victoria guy. The last time he played [2010] he had 500 people following him around, alone.”
He had a huge following in 2008 when Brian Im won in a playoff as Rutledge missed by one stroke.
PGA Tour Champions has been a struggle so far this year as Rutledge attempts to Monday qualify for events. He did play in Houston two weekends ago as a sponsor’s invite. He would obviously be an easy selection for the senior event slated for Bear Mountain in September.
“I have to go through the process, just like everybody else,” said Rutledge, who is playing the Cedar Hill Open this weekend on the course he grew up on. “I’ve talked to some of the people running the [senior] event and it’s the way it is. I’m hopeful, being local, so we’ll wait and see.
“I’d like to work my way into it, prior to that event when we play at Pebble Beach, so if I can get a top-10 there and work my way in without having to give the sponsor’s invite away, would be perfect.”
CHIP SHOTS: The BPISO also announced an exemption for the June 2-5 tournament for Gordy Scutt of Olympic View. The Zone 5 amateur champ is the only spot to be determined, outside of Monday qualifiers.
