Ted Purdy

Purdy progressed nicely from 2004 to 2005, but the progression came to a halt in 2006. In his previous two seasons, Purdy had benefited from strong outings in early spring. In 2004 he was runner-up at the MCI Heritage. In 2005 he won the Byron Nelson. In 2006 the best he could muster was a tie for fifth at the Bay Hill. Not bad, but when you have nothing else to go with it, you are going to fall short of expectations, which is exactly what happened in 2006. Purdy is better than what he showed in 2006. Look for a small bounce-back in 2007.

Here's your smoke and mirrors man for 2005. Purdy won the Byron Nelson Championship in May and did little else the rest of the year. Purdy had only three top-10s in 34 tries. It doesn't take a math whiz to know that ratio is not good. Purdy might be able to parlay his one win into more success in 2006, but you'd have to be crazy to gamble nearly $2.2. million on him to start the year.

After losing his PGA Tour card following the 1999 season Purdy was not about to let that happen again in 2004. Purdy teed it up an amazing 35 times in 2004. There are no worries about losing his Tour card this time around as he was safely in the top 125 last year. We would guess that he plans to play often again in 2005, but that may not be a good thing. Playing that many times is bound to wear a player down, and Purdy isn't exactly Vijay Singh. We expect Purdy's earnings to fall a bit in 2005, say around $1.5 million.