Players To Root For Files: 2016 PGA Tour's Oldest Rookie

As the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am gets ready to kick off, Steve DiMeglio profiles the PGA Tour's oldest rookie, Rob Oppenheim.

Oppenheim played well in San Diego and while not under the age of 25, is worth rooting for after years of toiling on mini-tours. You've probably heard the story of how he found out he'd secured a tour card, but just in case you didn't...

As he pumped gas 30 miles down the road from the Tour Championship in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., where more cards were up for grabs, the journeyman who has played hundreds of mini-tour events and on pro tours named Canadian, Hooters, New England Pro, Nationwide and Cleveland, thought he had missed heading to the PGA Tour by one stroke.

Then his phone started blowing up with text messages.

He was going to be the oldest rookie on the PGA Tour.

When Lucas Glover made bogey on the 72nd hole, Oppenheim moved into a six-way tie for 12th and the extra money earned him his Tour card. By $101.

“People must have been wondering what was going on because we were all hugging and crying at that gas station,” Oppenheim, 36, said Tuesday as he played a practice round at sun-drenched Pebble Beach ahead of Thursday’s start of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.