By Mark Spoor
PGATOUR.com Contributor

For Mike San Filippo, the Champions Tour National Qualifying Tournament didn’t feel as pressure-packed this time around. He’s hoping the same holds true for the 2007 season.

San Filippo, 54, a former club pro from Miami, eased through the four-round event at the TPC Eagle Trace last month, finishing 12th at even-par 288. Since the top 30 players and ties became eligible to compete in qualifiers held for open, full-field Champions Tour events next season, there wasn’t much for San Filippo to worry about, particularly after making birdie on the tournament’s penultimate hole.

“I felt like q-school was a little less tense this time around because there were more spots,” he said. “So I felt like the pressure was a little bit less than it had been in the past.”

Still, San Filippo says it wasn’t exactly a walk in the park, either.

“I had a little cushion coming down the stretch, which is nice, but Eagle Trace was a pretty good challenge this year,” he said. “It’s a good golf course and the wind blew pretty good on the last couple of days. I don’t think I ever really felt confident until I knocked it on the green on 17, when I knew I didn’t have any more water to look at.

“Q-school is never easy.”

Nor will this season be for San Filippo and the other 29 players who got through the qualifying tournament. This year, instead of getting Champions Tour cards outright, they’ll still have to go through those qualifying tournaments each week to get into the tournament proper. In essence, they’ve qualified to qualify. The good news in that scenario, according to San Filippo, is that there are more spots available for each open tournament -- nine -- than there have been in the past.

“This past year, I Monday qualified several times and there were only two spots, which is really tough,” he said. “I think it’s going to make the Mondays a little bit easier to take in the sense that if you make a mistake somewhere in your round, you’re not necessarily dead.”

Last season, San Filippo made 12 Champions Tour appearances and earned $117,866. He had four top-25 finishes with a season’s best of 21st at the Puerto Vallarta Blue Agave Classic in April.

This year, he expects more.

“It’s time for me to break into the top 10. Time to get in contention. Time to win a golf tournament on Sunday,” he said. “I do feel more confident about my game. I’ve got some more experience in the last few years that I think will help me do what I need to do to perform a little better on the weekend when it really counts.”

San Filippo said for the most part, the battle is a mental one.

“You have to feel comfortable in the hunt,” he said, “getting used to the sense that you are in contention, you’re playing well, instead of messing it up, to just put the pedal down and keep trying to make birdies and go forward.

“I started to do that a little bit this year. I got close a couple of times and then sort of backed off and I think that experience is going to help me next year. When I do get close, I’ll be less inclined to play safe.”

As far as San Filippo’s plans for the coming season, he said he’s taking a wait-and-see approach.

“I want to kind of see how it goes,” he said. “I plan on picking the Tour up in February. I’ll skip the Hawaii tournaments and pick it up when it comes to Boca (Raton, Fla., for the Allianz Championship) and try the first six from that point on and take inventory of what’s going on and see how it looks and if I’m up for it.

“The bad part to me is that you’ve got to travel to qualify, that was my one problem with it -- if you don’t qualify, you’re on the road. However, I think what it does do is it’s going to give anyone who’s playing well at that moment an opportunity to play in a tournament when he’s playing well and perhaps do well. Hopefully, it will be a better system for guys who are trying to get in there who aren’t otherwise exempt on the Tour or played the Tour all their lives.”