Waiting for their son to realize his dream, like Jason Buha

Waiting for their son to realize his dream, like Jason Buha, who made the cut at 9-under after shooting an eagle on 16.

"I didn't play good golf, and I really had to suck it up the last four or five holes," said Buha, a 24-year-old from Atlanta. "But all I know is I'm in. That's what matters. I picked up the clubs for the first time when I was 6, and I've been playing competitive golf since I was 10. This is a lifelong dream."

For those like Buha, the dream is to get your Tour card. For those like Friend, the trick is to keep it. In 1998, Friend was 57th on the PGA money list.

But this year he changed his swing in July, his earnings tumbled, and Monday he found himself fighting for his Tour life in the same threesome as Gary Nicklaus.

"I'm emotionally spent," said Friend, son of former Pirates pitcher Bob Friend. "For someone like me, I've had [sponsorship] deals for several years, and one shot here and some of those things can dry up. It's so important to me. I have a wife, three kids, a mortgage. This whole thing is nerve-wracking."

Jason Caron knew the feeling. He teed off Monday morning at 8:45, but he was still on the bubble in the middle of the afternoon. "I can't root against anyone," Caron said.

He didn't have to.

While Van Der Walt and Phillipa sat at a table outside the bar grieving and Jaxon Brigman was slumped in a golf cart trying to figure out what went wrong, word filtered through Doral that Brian Tennyson had bogeyed the 17th and sent his approach shot on 18 into the water.

Tennyson's failure allowed Caron and everyone else with an 8 under to make the cut.