Trying to play through {HEADLINE2} Bob May and Jason Gore are two of the ex-PGA Tour players
Every week, someone asks Bob May to go back 10 years and recall one of the most memorable near misses in the history of golf.
But May is happy to discuss his epic playoff loss to Tiger Woods at the 2000 PGA Championship -- a back-and-forth duel that ended with Woods' fifth of 14 major championship wins.
"That was one of the highlights of my career," May, 42, said. "I don't mind sharing it with other people if they want to hear about it."
Given a choice, though, May prefers to look ahead as he tries to revive his game on the Nationwide Tour.
This week, he'll be one of many Tour veterans to tee it up in the Miccosukee Championship in Miami. The 144-player field includes 11 players with a combined 26 PGA Tour wins.
May, a three-time runner-up on Tour but never a winner, hopes to make a move up the Nationwide money list during the season's final weeks and recoup the playing card he lost in 2007.
With May's career in limbo, his duel with Tiger is a distant memory.
"I never think about it until it's brought up," he said Tuesday. "You don't want to limit yourself with things like that. You have to look at what you're dealing with right now."
May sits 84th on the money list with $62,219.
He will need a strong showing this week or next to finish in the top 60 on the money list and earn a spot in the season-ending Tour Championship.
May is a long shot for a top 25 finish -- the cut-off for a Tour card in 2011. But the gap between May and No. 25 Jason Hahn is $105,000, so a big week or two can change things quickly.
Jason Gore, a past champion on both the PGA and Nationwide tours, is eyeing a big move himself following his first top 25 finish in 18 events -- a tie for 16th last week at the Chattanooga Classic.
"I'm going to have to do something special," said the 36-year-old Gore, who is 124th on the money list. "But some of my confidence is back. That's been missing a little bit."
Players on the Nationwide are searching or waiting for something.
"Everybody is trying to get somewhere else from here," six-time Tour winner Steve Pate said.
Pate, 49, became the oldest winner on the Nationwide Tour when he captured the Pacific Rubiales Bogota Open in May.
But Pate knows the next chapter in his career -- on the Champions Tour -- is waiting.
"I turn 50 in seven months and 14 days -- approximately," he joked.
Pate, a full-time Nationwide player for several years, realizes one bad swing or a couple of missed putts a round can be the difference between playing for a piece of $600,000 in Miami or a $5 million purse at this week's PGA Tour event -- the Frys.com Open in California.
Gore, who played in the final group at the 2005 U.S. Open and made $1.1 million in 2007, just wants to get his card back after losing it last year.
"I feel like I belong there," he said. "But right now I've made my bed and I've got to play my way out of it."
Meanwhile, Kirk Triplett, 48, is hoping for just one more year as a full-time Tour player before he joins Pate on the Champions Tour.
Triplett, a three-time PGA Tour winner, has four top 25s in 11 events in 2010. But he has two third-place finishes in five Nationwide events and sits 77th on the money list, with the top 60 well within range.
Triplett said 25, 30 years ago, a Tour veteran like him might have quit and worked at a club. The Nationwide Tour has changed his thinking.
"When a guy decides to be a professional tournament golfer, I think it's pretty hard to give it up," he said. "In an organized sport, where you're part of team, they tell you when you're done. In golf you're the one that decides and it's hard to look in the mirror and say, 'I can't do it.'"
~edgar_thompson@pbpost.com
