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Andrew McLardy stood on the green of the most important golf hole of his life Monday afternoon with no clue as to what was going on around him.

It was the final day of PGA Tour qualifying school, the final hole, the final putt to determine if he would win his playing card for 2010 or face another year struggling to make it as a professional golfer in America. There was nothing riding on it, but everything.

Across the golf course, watery Bear Lakes Country Club in West Palm Beach, Fla., men were coming apart. Tears and nerves and pressure unlike anything on the regular tour were taking their toll on some of the best golfers in the world.

McLardy was oblivious to it all.

"I thought I was already out of it," he said.

McLardy returned home to Greensboro late Monday, secure in his plans for 2010 and oddly thankful for a bad round of golf that he assumed had doomed him to another year chasing his dream of returning to the PGA Tour. He was prepared to come to Greensboro, where he now lives, and start the process over.

The life of a professional golfer isn't all trophies and paychecks. And contrary to what you might've heard, it's not even an individual sport sometimes. McLardy, a 35-year-old South African who has tried and failed to make it on the American tour before, once again was at the mercy of the tour's merciless qualifying school.

All day Monday, the last of six excruciating rounds that annually determine who survives to claim those 25 precious cards, tales of success and failure were playing out across the course. Players were choking under the pressure, crying as they came up the final fairways, some simply walking off the course before the round ended with no explanation.

Tour veterans such as David Duval, Shaun Micheel and Tom Pernice Jr. were locked in a brutal struggle with kids just out of college, players up from the mini-tours, some with no business even being out there. At one time or another, that thought goes through every player's mind during Q-School.

"I missed by one stroke in 2005," McLardy said.

Monday, he assumed a triple-bogey at the par-4 seventh hole had ended yet another attempt. He'd already made the decision to give up his standing on the European PGA Tour, decided to risk another year of Nationwide events and hope for sponsor exemptions. He'd moved his family to Greensboro, packed his bags and went off to Q-School one more time.

McLardy played well down there, stayed on the leaderboard and threatened to win the thing outright. For five days.

"It's such a long week," he said by phone Tuesday morning, back home with a 2-year-old screaming in the background. "The week drags on. There are practice rounds, and then weather came in and delayed the starts. The days started at 5 a.m. It made it all so tiring."

And still, through six holes Monday, all seemed to be going according to plan.

"And then one bad hole," he said. "I assumed it was over. I didn't look at numbers all week. I thought I was three strokes off the number."

And so, strangely, he felt no pressure. While players around him crumbled and broke down under the weight of dashed dreams, he simply played one shot after another. While as many as 14 players withdrew without reason during the final round, as players such as Duval and Micheel and Pernice failed to win their card, as players took breaks to throw up and cry on their caddie's shoulder, McLardy played on.

"Your mind starts racing," he said. "I played so well for five days. It would've been terrible ... "

His voice dropped off. He'd been there before when the number moved after he'd finished, someone else making a birdie at the final hole to eliminate him and send him back to Europe or the Nationwide Tour. His mind wandered, but didn't snap.

"It's important," he said. "But you have to keep it in perspective. It's not life and death. It's not worth crying about."

Around the big leaderboard back at the clubhouse, golfers began to mingle as word of McLardy's demise spread. He'd gone from 14-under par to 9-under, and not only was his tournament at stake but those of others who needed him to choke to move the cut line. Agents milled around the parking lots, waiting for the survivors to walk away, reporters converging on those who failed, the Golf Channel televising the entire gut-wrenching ordeal.

McLardy stood on the 18th without a worry in the world. He was already out of it. Why worry about the most important shot he would ever play?

"I felt no pressure," he said. "It was over."

He'd already carved up the 18th, missed badly on his approach, chipped over the green, missed coming back and was standing over a 3-foot putt that should've had him considering just walking off the green and throwing up.

Back home, his family was waiting.

They'd watched him pack his bags and leave so many times, going away hoping to make another paycheck, dreaming of the day they could live in relative comfort in America, on the PGA Tour.

Cameras were rolling, and commentators were breathlessly describing his tragic 18th while his peers looked on like vultures. He was on the exact number, three feet away from ignominy.

Andrew McLardy shot a 77 on Monday. He made the putt. And then he came home.

Contact Ed Hardin at 373-7069 or ed.hardin@news-record.com