Robert Streb confronts his weekend of decision

Robert Streb can emerge from PGA Tour anonymity by claiming this weekend’s RSM

From the standpoint of his professional golfing career, the next two days are the biggest in Robert Streb’s life.

Streb is a 33-year-old tour veteran with one career victory to his credit. It came in October of 2014 at an event then known as the McGladrey, now called the RSM. That’s the same event being played this weekend at Sea Island, Ga., and also the same one Streb, thanks to a Friday 63, leads by three strokes with 18 holes to play.

More from Golf News

Over his final 18 holes, Streb faces the life-changing prospect of emerging from the vast anonymity inhabited by the great bulk of the PGA Tour’s players. He can do that with a victory.

It’s a prospect that arises for at most a small handful of veteran journeymen each season. Some, like Ted Potter Jr., live the fantasy out to its fullest. Potter was 37 and in the midst of a six-season winless streak when he beat the field at the 2018 ATT Pebble Beach.

He turned that victory into a $1.978 million season in 2018. Potter’s entire professional winnings to that point had amounted to about $2.6 million, the bulk of that resulting from a 2012 victory at the Greenbrier, his 10th professional start.

Others, more numerous, see the opportunity flit away. You’ve never heard of them. There’s a reason why.

Since winning at the McGladrey, Streb has been reliving the experience of Potter and of literally hundreds of other Tour players, most of whom have not won once, much less twice. He came to the tour as a 2009 graduate of Kansas State – a school whose only other notable pro, Jim Colbert, retired in the mid-1980s.

Aside from that McGladrey victory – which has looked increasingly freakish since Streb’s career progress slowed to a crawl – he has only 19 top 10s in 213 career starts. That’s more than offset by 91 missed cuts.

His career earnings of $9.9 million sounds workable, but don’t kid yourself. Streb hasn’t topped $1 million since 2017. Last season his 19 starts generated just one top 10 finish, just three top 25s, and just $48,320 in prize money. That’s about what a starting school teacher would make in a lot of places … and teachers don’t pay caddies or run up cross-country travel expenses.

Streb ranked 145th in the final 2020 FedEx Cup standings. He hasn’t broken into the top 125 since 2017.

That’s why winning the RSM is a potentially life-changing opportunity. It carries a $6.6 million purse. Last season’s champion, Tyler Duncan, walked off with a $1.18 million check. That’s about as much cash has Streb has won in his most recent 50 starts combined.

It gets better. Victory carries with it 500 FedEx Cup points. Streb entered the RSM standing 143rd on the FedEx Cup list, a level he’s used to. Prior to 2020, he finished 128th in 2019 and 178th the season before that. In eight full seasons on Tour, he’s made the top 125 just four times.

Yet a win at the RSM would propel his current 43 point total to 543, jetting him all the way up to eighth on the seasonal list. That would effectively guarantee a shot at the season-ending big money events next summer. It only took about 275 points to make the top 125 last season; 543 points was good for a spot in the mid 50s entering the first of the FedEx Cup playoff events.

Then there are the big-money tournaments. The RSM winner gets an automatic invitation to the Tournament of Champions, the Masters, and the PGA, not to mention a guaranteed spot in any Tour event he chooses to schedule for two years. Major opportunities are particularly coveted for players like Streb, who has qualified for just 10 of them over the course of his career, none since the 2017 British Open. (He missed the cut.)

His genuine major shot came at the 2016 PGA at Baltusrol, when he held a share of the 36-hole lead. Streb finished 72-69 and tied for seventh, six strokes behind Jimmy Walker.

He’s only made the Masters field twice, failing to survive the cut in 2015 and 2016.

Statistically, 2021 wasn’t shaping up any better for Streb than his four most recent seasons. Not, that is, until he turned in a 63 Friday to take that two-stroke lead entering the weekend. He followed it with a 67 Saturday. His -1.19 Strokes Gained score, 221st on Tour, reflected sub-par performances both approaching the green and around it. He ranked 220th in driving distance, 245th in sand saves, and – at 71.74 – 142nd in scoring average.

His is not a game you can count on from week-to-week. Prior to Friday, he hadn’t shot 63 in an official PGA Tour round since July of 2018. That was 143 rounds ago.

Streb, then, has a huge opportunity this week to emerge from the anonymous mass of talented players who populate PGA fields week in and week out. He cannot assume this opportunity will come around very often. Nor can he assume that his two-stroke advantage means much, not with the talented field of players positioned to challenge him.

Next. All-time ranking: Who moved up in 2020?. dark

They include men with far stronger name recognition factors. Zach Johnson, a two-time Major champion, will begin three strokes behind and in Streb’s group. Kevin Kisner and Eliano Grillo are both close enough to make a run.

Streb needs to take advantage of the rare opportunities to win that his game provides. This is one of them..

Home/Golf News