Players parry pressure while chasing LPGA opportunities

Angela Buzminski has been in this position before. And she has learned from experience that the best way to deal with late-season pressure on the Duramed Futures Tour is to ignore it.

Buzminski sits in sixth place on the Duramed money list heading into today's first round of the $100,000 iMPACT Classic at Richmond Country Club. She trails the player perched in fifth place, Samantha Richdale, by just more than $4,000. The top five players on the money list at season's end -- less than a month away -- will earn priority status on the LPGA Tour for 2010.

Buzminski, a 39-year-old Canadian, finished second on the Futures Tour money list in 2001 and was rewarded with LPGA exempt status for 2002. She said she will concentrate not on the mural as a whole but rather on individual strokes -- literally and figuratively -- this weekend.

"Urgency? Absolutely not, at least not for me," she said. "All you can do is all you can do. You can't worry about what someone else is doing. If they play well, they play well. Good for them. I'll do the best I can. I'll try to focus on the same things I always focus on: hitting good shots and making good decisions."

Beyond that, she said, "If it's meant to be, it's meant to be," she said. "If it's not . . . "

She shrugged.

"It's not."

Buzminski, who has one victory and four other top-10 finishes in 14 Duramed appearances this year, said her goal in the season's final three tournaments, this one included, is simple: Emphasize the process of playing golf and not the result. To do otherwise, she said, would skew the sense of consistency upon which she depends.

"Whether it's the first tournament of the year or the last, that shouldn't change your approach," she said. "The first shot in the first tournament of the year is just as important as the last putt in the last tournament."

Richdale, a 25-year-old Canadian, has climbed into the top five by ringing up seven top-10 finishes, including one victory, in 14 starts. She has scored in the 60s in five of her past nine rounds. Particularly significant: a final-round 64 that enabled her to tie for fourth at last weekend's Falls Auto Group Classic in London, Ky.

Hot streak notwithstanding, Richdale said the footsteps of her pursuers clearly will be audible when she tees off this afternoon.

"There's some stress, definitely," she said.

Top-five status with three events remaining, she said, is tantalizing torture. On the one hand, she has put herself into position to capture one of the Futures Tour's most coveted prizes. On the other hand, she said, nine rounds of golf still remain to be played.

"To tell you the truth, right now I don't feel like I'm close to anything," she said. "Someone could win this week and jump into the top five and completely bump me out. The same thing could happen next week [when the tour visits Harrisburg, Pa., for the Turkey Hill Classic]. So no, I don't really feel like [a top-five finish] is within reach. And I won't, really, until it's over and I've actually done it."

Players expected to contend for the $14,000 top prize include leading money winner Mina Harigae of Monterey, Calif., already a three-time champion in 2009, and Sophia Sheridan of Mexico, the runner-up in the 2008 Duramed Futures event at RCC. South Korean teenager Haeji Kang, last year's winner, is competing on the LPGA Tour.