Masters invite is almost in the mail for Taylor

You can divide almost anything involving golf into two schools.

Mechanical or feel. Power or finesse. Conservative or aggressive. Titleist Pro V1 or not. Scoreboard watcher or ignorer.

On that last school, Vaughn Taylor admits to a little peeking. Considering what's at stake, can you blame him?

Taylor - who can officially be referred to as the best golfer ever produced by Augusta State University, Hephzibah High School and Goshen Plantation - made more than $1 million in the past four weeks. For those of us who routinely play the lottery, that would be nice enough.

But for Taylor, that money means a much bigger jackpot. For Taylor, it's his ticket into the one event any golfer with an Augusta pedigree covets most - The Masters Tournament.

It won't be official until Halloween, but Taylor's third-place finish in Boston moved him from 43rd to 31st on the PGA Tour's money list. The top 40 at the end of the season qualify for the Masters.

"Normally Vaughn doesn't check things or worry about where he's standing," said his mother, Lynn. "But (on Tuesday) after I saw him and hugged him I said, 'You are 31 on the (money) list now.' He grinned and said, 'I know. I looked.'"

What Taylor implies with his grin but refuses to say is that the past month's success has him a virtual lock for the Masters. Assuming that is a safer bet than Tiger Woods leaving the PGA Championship as leader in the clubhouse. It's a math thing.

If Taylor never makes another penny this season, his $1,665,303 should already be enough. PGA Tour purses increased 4.17 percent from 2004 to 2005 - and that's assuming that officials figure out a way to still play the $3 million event in October in Katrina-ravaged Mississippi.

Taylor has already made 7.5 percent more than last year's No. 40 money man, Jesper Parnevik.

"I don't want to get too excited and finish 41st or something," Taylor said. "That would be pretty bad. I might have already done it or I might not. It depends on who makes the money in the next couple months."

Taylor is closer by more than $100,000 to 20th on the money list than he is to 40th. You can attribute that to another savvy peek at the scoreboard in Boston on Labor Day.

Playing the par-5 closing hole, Taylor noticed that only two names were safely ahead of his among a logjam at 9-under par. A birdie would mean a significant difference in take-home pay.

Taylor two-putted for birdie from 60 feet, lifting him ahead of fellow Augustan Charles Howell and three others into third by himself - a windfall of roughly $150,000. That's the difference between being 31st on the money list and halfway down Magnolia Lane vs. 37th and on the bubble.

"Any time you're in the top 10, you know if you birdie that last hole you've got a lot of money on the line," he said. "I knew I needed to two-putt that. I hit a great putt, perfect speed, easy tap in."

In a season that included a two-month stretch without making a cut and another month sidelined by injury, Taylor's surge toward the top has been anything but easy. His remarkable run has him on the doorstep - $676 to be exact - from a whole new realm of the golfing kingdom. If he finishes in the top 30 on the money list, he will qualify for the Tour Championship in Atlanta.

"It's nice to be in the position I'm in now," Taylor said. "My goal now is to play well the next couple of weeks and take care of it as quickly as possible and maybe be able to relax a little bit toward the end of the year and enjoy it."

Taylor has recalibrated his sights for the top 15. Why not even higher? Taylor is currently 10th in the 2006 Ryder Cup standings and fifth for the 2007 Presidents Cup. If those seem still far out of reach, so was the Masters not too long ago.

"I look ahead a little bit," Taylor said of his new horizons. "The Ryder Cup is a long way from now, and a lot of golf has to be played. But at the same time ... it opens my eyes a little bit."

In August, when Taylor repeated as champion of the Reno-Tahoe Open in dominating wire-to-wire fashion, he called it a statement victory. Unfortunately, it's not a statement the Masters recognizes anymore.

But topping Tiger Woods with a top-five finish for the second time this year (the first was in Charlotte, where Taylor was fifth to Tiger's 11th) will be heard.

"I hope so, because his one dream is to be in the Masters," Taylor's mother said. "One day they're going to recognize Vaughn and see what he can do. But he wouldn't want them showing him any favoritism. He wants to work his way there and earn it."

Bank on it.

Reach Scott Michaux at (706) 823-3219 or scott.michaux@augustachronicle.com.