KEY POINTS:
New Zealand golfer Tim Wilkinson can sleep easy after a career-best performance safeguarded his playing privileges on the PGA Tour in the United States today.
Wilkinson was near flawless as he posted a six-under-par 64 in the closing round of the US$4.5 million (NZ$7.6 million) Texas Open at
San Antonio to tie for second behind American Zach Johnson.
That left the Palmerston North left-hander at 17-under 263 for the tournament, alongside Korean Charlie Wi and American Mark Wilson, two back of 2007 Masters champion Johnson.
Crucially, the US$336,000 Wilkinson earned is more than enough to guarantee his playing rights for 2009.
With just one month remaining on the schedule, Wilkinson has now won US$1.12m in tournament income during his rookie season, with today's windfall promoting him 28 places to 84th on the moneylist.
He is comfortably inside the top 125 who automatically retain their cards, and can now see out the season free of fretting about his playing status for next season.
"With another four events after this it is nice not having to worry about it," Wilkinson, 30 said.
Wilkinson was close to his very best at LaCantera Golf Club to surpass his previous best results on the tour, when he was third in the Zurich Classic of New Orleans and sixth equal in the Puerto Rico Open in March.
His unblemished card contained an eagle three and four birdies after he began the last round in a share of second place, three strokes behind third-round leader, South African Rory Sabbatini.
Sabbatini immediately gave his pursuers cause for hope when he double bogeyed the par-five opening hole, before slipping from contention.
Wilkinson started solidly enough with pars at his first three holes before making progress with birdies at the par-four fourth and seventh, the latter after his iron approach ended nine feet from the pin.
He collected his third birdie at the 10th after his approach shot from light rough hit the flag stick.
Another chance presented itself at the 12th but Wilkinson was a touch tentative and his birdie attempt from 12 feet came up short.
It was a mistake he did not repeat at the next, the 130m par-three, when his fourth birdie moved him to within two strokes of the leaders.
He then temporarily joined Johnson and Wi atop the leaderboard at 17-under by draining a long range eagle putt at the 482m 14th, before Johnson reclaimed the outright lead.
Wilkinson's accuracy gave him another opportunity at the 15th, but a bold, 27-foot birdie attempt lipped out.
At the last, he airmailed an iron from 129m to within six feet of the hole only to push the putt left and leave Johnson out on his own walking down the 18th, which the American birdied to double his advantage.
Wilkinson acknowledged he had left one or two shots out on the course, something he attributed to a cautious approach with his putter.
"I had a couple of putts, which were down grain and I was probably a little too conservative," he said.
"I was wanting to cosy them up to the hole and hope they fell in. But they were down grain and I didn't want to race them by the hole."
Wilkinson originally intended to miss one of the four tournaments remaining on the schedule, but his coach, Andre White, now thinks he may consider playing them all to improve his ranking as much as possible.
More opportunities can present themselves next year the higher he finishes on the moneylist.
"Now that he has no worries about his tour card, which is secure under all circumstances, he has to improve his standing on the moneylist to get into more exemption categories," he said.
White said Wilkinson's performance in San Antonio underlined the fact he had the game to win on the PGA Tour.
"It was a very strong field - and he could have won had he dropped one or two more putts and had Johnson not putted as well as he did.
"If he keeps putting himself in those positions he will win eventually."
Texas Open leading scores
261: Zach Johnson 69 66 62 64
263: Charlie Wi (KOR) 67 68 67 61, Mark Wilson 68 66 66 63, TIM WILKINSON (NZ) 67 69 63 64
265: Jeff Overton 69 64 67 65
267: Stephen Ames (CAN) 68 71 66 62, Chris Stroud 66 64 69 68
268: Pat Perez 71 64 68 65, Tim Herron 65 67 67 69, Rory Sabbatini (RSA) 67 66 63 72
269: Harrison Frazar 69 69 65 66, Justin Leonard 70 69 64 66, Greg Kraft 65 71 65 68, Tim Petrovic 67 65 68 69
270: Dustin Johnson 67 69 68 66, Shane Bertsch 69 69 66 66, Jeff Maggert 73 65 64 68, Bob Tway 66 72 64 68
- NZPA