By John Reger
PGATOUR.com Contributor

LA QUINTA, Calif. -- It is an advantage afforded a small few at the finals of the PGA TOUR National Qualifying Tournament and Jerry Smith realizes how fortunate he is to possess it.

While most golfers in the field of 163 will be agonizing over every shot in the six-round tournament that begins Wednesday, Smith has a less stressful view of the event.

Smith was a fully-exempt TOUR member last year and earned $568,213, but finished 137th on the money list and didn’t keep his card for 2007. Only the top 125 retain full playing privileges.

Golfers finishing in the No. 126-150 range do earn conditional status, so Smith could probably play in about 15 tournaments or so. But he wanted to try and improve his position for 2007, hence he finds himself at Q-school this week.

The top 30 golfers and ties from Q-school receive TOUR cards. If Smith didn’t play in the event, he would be behind those golfers, as well as the 20 top finishers on the Nationwide Tour money list who earned PGA TOUR exemptions.

“For me, I am taking it as an opportunity and I don’t feel like I have a lot of pressure on myself,” Smith said. “We all want to come out here and get our card and get our full playing rights. I’m kind of looking forward to it.

“I know some guys come here and they are dreading it, six rounds and the grind. I have the attitude I am going to go out and if it is clicking, it will be a little more enjoyable and fun and I have a great chance to redeem myself. One week here could change everything.”

When Smith finished sixth on the Nationwide Tour money list in 2005, he earned his TOUR card. But even though he had played on TOUR in three previous years, he found it difficult to maintain consistency throughout 2006.

“I played well the beginning of the season, I just haven’t quite figured out what happened,” Smith said. “I know my game got a little away from where it was and it stayed consistently at that level and it wasn’t quite good enough.

“When I was playing well early in the year I really thought I could contend and I did it for a few weeks. It just shows how thin that line is of competing out here and just surviving out here.”

Normally earning more than half a million dollars would be a success in any business. There were 23 golfers who earned more than $500,000 in 2006, though, who didn’t keep their TOUR cards.

“The TOUR’s grown so much and the prize money is so good that everyone, especially members of the TOUR, love that,” Smith said. “It just shows how tough it is out here and how competitive it is at the top.”

That is why Smith is here, trying to improve his position so he has a better chance to play in as many tournaments as possible next year.

“When you are a little off your form I think it puts more pressure on yourself,” Smith said. “You maybe play a little more than you might want to or what you kind of thought you would at the beginning of the year.

“For me, I didn’t get into a few of the tournaments early in the year and that is when I was playing well and would have liked to have been playing. I would have liked to have taken more time off later in the year because I didn’t feel like I was playing as well but I felt like I needed to play.”

Smith finished 16th at the Sony Open in Hawaii and was a stroke out of the lead after the first round of the FBR Open, ultimately finishing 20th. He also posted a fifth-place finish at the Shell Houston Open. Despite struggling the rest of the year, he managed to retain conditional status for 2007, joining TOUR vets like Duffy Waldorf, Bob May and Chris Riley.

“You look at the guys that finished in my category, 125 to 150, and they are all mostly veteran players,” Smith said. “Maybe they didn’t get enough starts or maybe, like myself, they were a little off the second half of the year and it catches up to you.”

This week at Q-school, though, Smith gets a chance to try to get ahead of the pack again.