Brett Rumford Regains European Tour Card

Comeback stories have been common on the PGA TOUR this year, with top players like Tiger Woods and others looking to return to the course and find their past success.  But while all this was going on stateside there was another comeback story that occurred this weekend in Australia.

Brett Rumford made a triumphant return to golf this weekend in the World Super 6 Tournament, defeating Phachara Khongwatmai in the final round of match play.  In the experimental tournament, there were 54 holes of stroke play and Rumford led the pack by five strokes, leading into a 24 player match play on Sunday, where players played five, six-hole rounds of match play.

This was a big win for Rumford as he has been working towards returning to top golf form for a long time.  The 39-year old Rumford had a procedure in 2015 to remove part of his intestine after he became ill in South Africa.  If that wasn’t bad enough, Rumford also lost his card on the European Tour because of the layoff and a lack of victories.

This was a tough road for Rumford and he was able to take some time to reminisce on the long road he had traveled.  “It has been a pretty tough road last year and the year before that was even tougher with my surgery,” he said.  “I only saw my daughters, my twin girls, for four weeks in six months and I sort of completely fell out of love with the game and my direction in life.”

All this work was worth it for Rumford though because with his victory this weekend, the European Tour has fully restored his Tour Card and he will be able to participate in European Tour tournaments for the rest of the year.  This was Rumford’s first tournament win on the European Tour since 2013.

Now that he is finally healthy and has his game back, Rumford will look to carry this momentum into a strong season on the European Tour for the rest of the year.

Cover Image via Instagram