Streaky Durant in the middle of an upswing on TOUR

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Joe Durant runner-up finish in Mexico will buy him some valuable PGA TOUR starts this spring.

Joe Durant missed out on becoming the first wire-to-wire on the PGA TOUR this season Sunday with a final-round 72, leaving him two shots behind winner Cameron Beckman.

JOE DURANT

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Yet Durant's runner-up finish in the Mayakoba Golf Classic at Riviera Maya-Cancun should be a sign of good things to come for the low-key Floridian.

Durant, you see, is one of the straightest shooters in professional golf, having led the PGA TOUR in greens in regulation and driving accuracy three times in his career.

But Durant's performance chart has been more crooked than a back-alley poker game. When he's good, he's very good; when he's not, he's heading back to q-school -- or into the insurance business.

Consider: In his 13 full seasons on the PGA TOUR, the 45-year-old has finished in the top 15 on the money list twice, but has no other top 50 showings. He failed to finish in the top 125 each of the last three years, having to rely on his Past Champion status to play this season after ranking 189th in 2008.

But there are times in his career when Ordinary Joe plays like All-Pro Joe.

In 2001, for instance, Durant won two of his four career TOUR titles in consecutive starts -- the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic and the Genuity Championship. He then made a strong run at becoming among just two dozen players to win three consecutive starts on the PGA TOUR, before settling for a tie for fifth at The Honda Classic.

Fact is, he earned more money during the first eight tournaments of the 2001 season ($1.778 million) than he had in his previous 128 starts ($1.696 million). That torrid stretch propelled him to a 14th-place finish on the '01 money list.

Alas, this was followed by four seasons where he failed to win or crack the top 60 on the money list. So just when it seems his career is tapering off, he goes on another incredible five-week run in late 2006.

First, he loses in a three-hole playoff to D.J. Trahan in the Southern Farm Bureau Classic. Then he finishes sixth in Greensboro, wins at Disney World, is T4 at the Chrysler Championship and third at THE TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola.

Too bad the season ended there.

So, naturally, Durant posts only three top-10 finishes in his next 77 starts during the last three-plus season before sharing second place Sunday with rookie Brian Stuard.

Durant admits he's more up-and-down than the stock market.

"I'd love to say I'm not a streaky player, but I am," Durant said. "I've always admired the guys that are just week-in-and-week-out consistently up there, the Phils, Tigers, Vijays, those guys. I guess I'm not cut of that cloth. When I get it going I can play, but unfortunately there are times when I seem to go to the other extreme."

Things became so extreme, Durant walked away from the game in late 1991 after he managed just one top-10 finish in 26 starts on the Nationwide Tour. He got his insurance license, but says he never sold a policy. He instead went to work for an Edwin Watts golf store in his hometown of Pensacola, taking orders and stacking boxes in a warehouse.

You know, a regular job.

It didn't take Durant long to realize a bad day as a professional golfer still beat a good day as a 9-to-5 employee. Through his connections with the golf store, he was offered an exemption into a Nationwide tournament in Pensacola in 1992. When he finished T20 in that event, he decided to give golf another try.

But with one pledge.

"I promised my wife (Tracey) I would not beat myself up anymore," he said. "I was going to go out and do the best I could every day and I would not bring it home with me. And 90 percent of the time, I've kept that promise."

While Durant had a chance Sunday to earn his fifth career TOUR title and ensure himself full-exempt status through the 2012 season (he would be just 18 months away from the Champions Tour then), the runner-up showing has its perks.

For one thing, the top-10 finish got him a spot in this week's Waste Management Phoenix Open. More importantly, the $329,700 check moved him into 40th on the money list a week before the status for non-exempt status players is reshuffled.

That means Durant is going to get into most of the events on the Florida Swing, where he typically does his best work.

When Durant is playing, it's not hard to find him -- in the fairways, on the greens. But in the next few weeks, you may continue to find him somewhere else.

Near the top of the leaderboard.

Craig Dolch is a freelance columnist for PGATOUR.COM. His views do not necessarily represent the views of the PGA TOUR.