James Edgar Rutledge (born August 26, 1959) is a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

professional

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...

er who currently plays on the Champions Tour. Rutledge was born in

Victoria, British Columbia Victoria is the capital city of the Canadian province of British Columbia, on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada's Pacific coast. The city has a population of 91,867, and the Greater Victoria area has a population of 397,237. Th ...

. He won the Canadian Juvenile Championship in 1975 at the Gorge Vale Golf Club in Victoria and the Canadian Junior Championship in 1977. He turned professional in 1978. For the first 20 years of his career, Rutledge would play in

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...

in the winter and in Canada for the rest of the year. He did not do this from 1988 to 1992 though. During that time Rutledge was a member of the

European Tour The European Tour (currently known as the DP World Tour for sponsorship reasons), legally the PGA European Tour is the leading men's professional golf tour in Europe. The organisation also operates the European Senior Tour (for players aged fi ...

, where his best finish on the Order of Merit came in 1990 when he finished in 55th, earning £75,274. He played in his first

major Major (commandant in certain jurisdictions) is a military rank of commissioned officer status, with corresponding ranks existing in many military forces throughout the world. When used unhyphenated and in conjunction with no other indicators ...

at the 1990 Open Championship, where he was high on the leaderboard going into the weekend, but ended up finishing T-57. He played in his second and last major the following year at the 1991 Open Championship but he missed the cut. Rutledge's best finish on the

Asia Golf Circuit The Asia Golf Circuit was the principal men's professional golf tour in Southeast Asia from the early 1960s through to the mid-late 1990s. The tour was founded in 1961 as the Far East Circuit. The first series of five tournaments was held in 1962 ...

Order of Merit was third in 1994 and 1995. He has finished third on the Canadian Tour's Order of Merit three times. He is one of the winningest players in Canadian Tour history, winning six times on tour. Rutledge was a member of the Nationwide Tour between 2001 and 2009, except for 2007 when he was a member of the PGA Tour. Rutledge's first Nationwide Tour win in 2006 at the

ING New Zealand PGA Championship The New Zealand PGA Championship is a golf tournament on the PGA Tour of Australasia. It is currently known for sponsorship reasons as the SEC NZ PGA Championship. History The tournament been played since 1909, with some gap periods. It was orig ...

, helped him finish in 14th on the money list, which earned him his PGA Tour card for 2007. As the second oldest rookie in the history of the PGA Tour, he was not able to retain his tour card. Rutledge only made 5 of 23 cuts, with his best finish coming at the

Mayakoba Golf Classic at Riviera Maya-Cancun The World Wide Technology Championship at Mayakoba is a professional golf tournament on the PGA Tour in Mexico, held at Playa del Carmen, south of Cancún. It debuted in February 2007 and was the first PGA Tour event in Mexico this century. Histo ...

where he finished T-31. He does not play in Asia anymore but still plays on the Canadian Tour. After turning 50 on August 26, 2009, Rutledge has made several appearances on the Champions Tour, with some success. He earned conditional exempt status for the 2011 Champions Tour season, by finishing eighth at the final

qualifying school In professional golf, the term qualifying school is used for the annual qualifying tournaments for leading golf tours such as the U.S.-based PGA and LPGA Tours and the European Tour. A fixed number of players in the event win membership of the ...

tournament on November 19, 2010. Only the top five players in that event gained full status for 2011. He fully qualified for the 2012 Champions Tour after finishing tied for second at qualifying school in 2011.Freeman earns medalist honors at q-school
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Amateur wins

*1975 Canadian Juvenile Championship *1977 Canadian Junior Championship

Professional wins (9)

PGA Tour of Australasia wins (1)

¹Co-sanctioned by the Nationwide Tour

Nationwide Tour wins (1)

¹Co-sanctioned by the

PGA Tour of Australasia The PGA Tour of Australasia, currently known for sponsorship reasons as the ISPS Handa PGA Tour of Australasia, is a professional golf tour for men, owned and operated by the PGA of Australia. Official events on the tour count for World Golf Ra ...

Asia Golf Circuit wins (1)

Canadian Tour wins (6)

Other wins (1)

*2000 Niagara Classic

Results in major championships

CUT = missed the half-way cut
"T" = tied
''Note: Rutledge only played in The Open Championship.''

Canadian national team appearances

World Cup A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the concept i ...

: 1984,

1995 File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is O. J. Simpson murder case, acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the 1994, year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The ...

2006 File:2006 Events Collage V1.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2006 Winter Olympics open in Turin; Twitter is founded and launched by Jack Dorsey; The Nintendo Wii is released; Montenegro 2006 Montenegrin independence referendum, votes to declare ...

Dunhill Cup The Alfred Dunhill Cup was a team golf tournament which ran from 1985 to 2000, sponsored by Alfred Dunhill Ltd. It was for three-man teams of professional golfers, one team representing each country, and was promoted as the "World Team Championshi ...

: 1993, 1996

References

External links

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Article from Sports Illustrated
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rutledge, Jim Canadian male golfers Asian Tour golfers European Tour golfers PGA Tour golfers PGA Tour Champions golfers Korn Ferry Tour graduates Golfing people from British Columbia 1959 births Living people