The time has finally arrived for Roger Rowland.

    After decades of toiling on mini-tours in and around Florida and Georgia, and too often attempting to buck difficult qualifying conditions at various big-time tours, the 54-year-old former long-time resident of Ocala gets his opportunity for a monetary bonanza beginning this week at the Chubb Classic in Naples.

    By forging a stunning last nine holes, Roger finished fourth at the last Champions Tour Q-School to earn his first full-time exemption for a major tour, and a chance to take on - for an entire season - Bernhard Langer, Freddy Couples, Steve Stricker, Miguel Angel Jiminez and a slew of other former PGA Tour Major winners .

    Only five fully-exempt spots were available at Q-School, plus conditional qualifying spots for the next 25 finishers. With nine holes to play in the final round, Roger was sitting in good position to make the secondary group of 25. Until a funny thing happened. He played the back nine in 6 under par and jumped all the way up to fourth, and if he takes advantage of the opportunity, securing future financial security on the tour that features no 36-hole cuts. 

    Roger has made it into just five Champions events in the last four years, two of them coming in 2021. He tied for 77th in the Ally Challenge and tied for 55th in the Constellation Furyk & Friends, earning a paltry $5,540, hardly enough to pay expenses for those two weeks. All told, his five Champions excursions have netted him $10,588. Although he has fared well in the minor leagues, there was a time when he supplemented his income as a crabber. That's not a typo - he owns his own boat, and he went out to sea to capture and sell crabs. 

    On Friday in Naples, Roger has a chance to begin making that part of his life a distant memory.

     

          

 

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