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By John Maginnes
PGATOUR.com Contributor

VERONA, N.Y. -- Golfers have the worst memories of any players in sports. Maybe you have to be a little absent-minded to forget the hard times, though.

Steve Flesch surrounded by fans after his win at the Reno-Tahoe Open (WireImage)

RELATED

• Flesch's player page • Rollins' player page • Kelly's player page

Still, I had to laugh at Steve Flesch following his opening-round 66 at the Turning Stone Resort Championship. He must have had a Champions Tour moment in that post-round interview when he said he was playing more golf this year than at any other time in his career. You see, Steve always plays a lot of golf tournaments. The man who won the Reno-Tahoe Open earlier this year has been in the top five in tournaments played each year since joining the PGA TOUR back in 1998 when he played 29 events. Amazingly, that year represents the fewest number of events that Steve has played in any single year since.

The Turning Stone Resort Championship is Steve's 28th tournament this year. If all goes as planned, Steve is going to play five of the final seven events in the Fall Series. He wants to move up into the top 30 on the money list to ensure his position in all the major championships for 2008. The way that he is playing, it would not be at all surprising for Steve to do just that.

Has he played more golf this year than ever before? I don't think so. You have to go way back to last year when Steve finished 61st on the money list to find a year in which he played more than 32 -- and last year he played 33.

The point here isn't to pick on Steve -- oh, maybe a little -- but instead, to point out that guys like Steve, who support the TOUR week-in and week-out, are the ones who keep it afloat. The TOUR has definitely enjoyed a surge in popularity with Tiger Woods being the most popular athlete in the world. Each year, though, Steve plays twice the number of events and twice the number of pro-ams that Tiger plays.

John Rollins has the advantage this week as he is the only TOUR member to have won a tournament at Turning Stone. (WireImage)

It would be easy to suggest that Steve plays so much because he has to play. And while there may be some validity to that statement, he certainly doesn't need to play right now. Neither does John Rollins or Jerry Kelly, who are also playing here this week.

Rollins is the tournament's unofficial defending champion. He won the final B.C. Open when serious flooding forced the tournament to pull up stakes and head north to Turning Stone just weeks before the event began. So this year, it is the same venue but a different event. Whether you call him the "dc" or not, John wasn't going to miss the return trip to Turning Stone -- even though he has played more golf in the last two months than any other player on TOUR. Since mid-July, he has only taken one week off from competition. Turning Stone is John's 28th event this year, and he plans on playing a few more before the end of the year. John, like Steve, tends to average about 30 events a year on TOUR.

Jerry Kelly at THE PLAYERS Championship in May 2007 (WireImage)

Jerry Kelly didn't quite make it to THE TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola like John did, but he has had a pretty good year. He finished in the top 10 in the Masters and the U.S. Open. Interestingly for Jerry, he has played fewer tournaments this year than in any other previous season on TOUR. Twice in his career, Jerry played 34 events in a single season. He has played 31 each of the last two years, but this is just Jerry's 25th event of the season.

Steve, John and Jerry are three guys who could have stayed home for the Fall Series and counted their earnings from the year. After all, they are all multiple winners on TOUR. But they play golf. They play because they love it. They play because they want to add another victory to their resumes. Heck, they play so much sometimes they lose track. But week-in and week-out, they play because that is what they have always wanted to do.