ESPN Golf

WINTER GARDEN, Fla. -- If you are going to endure this week of hell, a golf tournament where misery loves company, you'd better find a way to make the most of it.

Feel sorry for yourself, and you can forget it. Complain about tee times or the weather or the golf course, and you might as well stay home. Get caught up in the fact that just a shot or two over the span of six days and 108 holes can greatly alter your life, and you are already defeated.

Chris Riley learned that the hard way a year ago at the annual torture test that is the PGA Tour Qualifying Tournament, better known as Q-school.

Riley, who turns 34 next week, was seemingly in the prime of his career. He was just two years removed from partnering with Tiger Woods at the Ryder Cup. He had made more than $6 million in his career, even won a tournament.

And there he was at ... Q-school?

"Last year walking on the range, I felt like people were looking me. 'This guy was on the Ryder Cup team two years ago and now he's at tour school.' You feel like a failure," Riley said. "I was at the bottom of the barrel. I feel like I have a lot to prove here this week."

Riley is at Orange County National outside of Orlando, where he began Q-school on Wednesday with an opening-round even-par 72. He is among 166 players competing over six days in hopes of earning their PGA Tour cards for 2008. Only the top 25 and ties will get to play on the PGA Tour, with the next 50 earning status on the Nationwide Tour.

And that is not where Riley wants to be.

Riley played four events on the Nationwide Tour in 2007 and even won a tournament, catapulting him into the top 25 on the money list in June after his victory in Rochester, N.Y. He could have earned his way back to the PGA Tour by finishing among the top 25 on the Nationwide money list, and all who have been there will tell you they would much rather do that than endure Q-school.

Not Riley. He gambled, figuring he could get into a bunch of PGA Tour events and earn his card that way. But by finishing 161st on the money list, he not only failed to earn his card, but had to return to the second stage of PGA Tour qualifying. (Nos. 126-150 advance to the finals and have conditional status for next season.)

That meant Riley, who lives in Las Vegas, had to endure a 72-hole qualifier in California. Although he tied for 14th (the top 20 and ties advanced), he is still faced with this week's ordeal in order to get where he could have already been.

So why not stick with the Nationwide Tour and gain your card that way?

"I'm out here to play on the PGA Tour," said Riley, who finished 65th on the Nationwide money list despite playing in just those four tournaments. "When you've played the tour for eight or nine years, it's tough to go back to the Nationwide Tour. The week I won was opposite of the U.S. Open and I was trying to get a feel for where my game was. And I went and played the Nationwide Tour and I happened to win.

"But I never had any intentions of playing the Nationwide Tour. I play to make money, this is my job, and I never really put any focus on the Nationwide Tour. After I won, I was asked why I didn't dedicate myself to the Nationwide. At that point, I still had a dozen tournaments left on the PGA Tour (Riley was 150th on the 2006 money list, which gave him conditional status). Someone who has played on the New York Yankees doesn't want to step down to Triple-A. And I felt like I wasn't playing that bad.

"I admire a guy like Omar Uresti. He would have gotten into a bunch of tour events, but he stayed down there and it takes a lot of discipline to do that. I felt like I wasn't ready to do that. I wasn't going to pass up playing on the PGA Tour."

Riley didn't make it back that way, but he at least has a better mind-set than when he was faced with the same situation a year ago.

"I went there with no game plan," Riley said of the event at PGA West in California. "I probably should not have even gone. I shot 83 in the first round and I hit rock bottom. It shows you what the game is all about. This year I have a different attitude and I really feel good about everything. I can't hang my head. I feel like I'm playing better golf than I was last year. That's a positive."

This is Riley's fifth time at Q-school, the first three coming in consecutive years starting in 1996 after graduating from UNLV. He made it to the PGA Tour in 1999 and gradually worked his way up the money list, winning the Reno-Tahoe Open in 2002 and earning more than $2 million in both 2002 and 2003, followed by $1.2 million in 2004.

Although he made the Ryder Cup team that year -- he narrowly missed a playoff at the PGA Championship -- Riley's life was in transition. His wife, Michelle, had just given birth to the couple's first child (they now have two girls, ages 3 and 1). And suddenly Riley's golf wasn't as important.

"This is a selfish game. Everything is me, me me," he said. "Throw little kids into the equation and it's not me, me me. Don't get me wrong, having kids is the best thing that's happened. It's gone from me, me, me to all about them. But my attitude about golf started getting terrible and it snowballed.

"I'm getting back to where I want to be. I know what to expect when I'm traveling with the kids. I haven't really changed anything. My golf game is still there. It was a big adjustment period in my life. Now I'm ready to play."

And he's got five more days to show it.

Bob Harig is a frequent contributor to ESPN.com. He can be reached at BobHarig@gmail.com.