After tieing for fifth place at the Bob Hope Classic, and then again at the Farmers Insurance Open last week, Alex Prugh recorded a third straight top ten today, finishing in a tie for tenth place at the Northern Trust Open at Riviera CC in Pacific Palisades, Calif.
Prugh shot a closing one-under-par 70 to finish the tournament on 276, -8, eight shots behind winner Steve Stricker who closed with a 70 of his own to take his haul of career victories to eight and go to number two in the world.
Not for the first time this season, Prugh shot under par on the final day but found himself going backwards. Tied for eighth at the start of the round, which began at 8.14 this morning after 12 players had completed their third rounds, Prugh came out flying, notching three birdies in the first six holes.
A double-bogey at the 9th, where he pulled his drive left and could only hack further up the left side with his second, was a serious setback but he got back on track with a splendid birdie three at the short Par 4 10th where he drove almost pin high then chipped to a foot. He failed to birdie the Par 5 11th, however, then bogeyed the 479-yard Par 4 12th to drop back. He finished with six pars to post his third sub-par round of the week.
In four events, Prugh has a scoring average of 69.37 - ninth on Tour. He is averaging 294.4 yards off the tee and hitting 70.83% of greens. He is fourth in all-round ranking (total of a player's rank in scoring average, putting, Eagles, Birdies, Sand Saves, Greens in Regulation, Driving Distance and Driving Accuracy) and nine of his 16 rounds have been in the 60s. Today he won $147,200 to take his season's earnings to $543,978. And with another 65 FedEx Cup points, he now has a total of 273 putting him in 13th place in the standings. Last season, Jimmy Walker finished in 125th place on the PGA Tour money list with $662,683. That means that if this year's total prize fund is similar to last year's, Prugh is already just $120,000 or so short of earning his card for 2011.
No one at GolfWashington will be counting their chickens though; the PGA Tour is extremely demanding and competitive, and it will only take a tiny drop in performance for Prugh to start struggling to make halfway cuts.
Whatever; for now, let's just enjoy the fantastic start he has made to his PGA Tour career.

Final round 68