SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. - Rob Rashell is playing his first season on the PGA Tour. Throughout his rookie year, Rashell will provide a frequent glimpse of what it's like to break into the Tour.

After a fairly long stretch of playing tournaments and being on the road, I’ve decided to take a couple of weeks off. I haven’t posted an entry in a couple of weeks and thought now would be as good a time as any to let you know what I’m up to. My past three tournaments have been very similar in feeling and result, a lot of very average golf.

I’ve been pushing fairly hard this year working on my golf game and playing in as many tournaments as I could get into. I’m learning there is no right or wrong way to approach a year on Tour, and the majority of the process is discovered through trial and error. I’ve had almost identical results the past four or five weeks and with that, I think I need a couple of weeks to rest and get some perspective on my year to this point.

The difficult part about taking time off for me is actually taking the time off. Even though I’ve played poorly this year, I still enjoy traveling and playing all of these great events. We’re taken care of so well week in and week out that it becomes hard to turn down an opportunity to compete. The odd thing about playing professional golf is that it’s better to finish 10th or better one week and miss the next five cuts than to make every cut for six tournaments and finish 50th in each. No matter how poorly a player scores for the majority of the year, if he/she can put it together for one week, that is all that matters. With that being said, I’m trying to figure out how to get from here to there.

After practicing and playing so much over the year and working and trying so hard to play well, I lost a little perspective, not being able to see the trees from the forest, or however that saying goes. So, I decided to take the next three weeks off. I’m not sure if this is the right thing to do, although spending another week out on the road was not the answer. I’ve always learned much more from the hard times than I have the good times, so let’s hope that holds true with this as well.

As far as some highlights from the last couple weeks, I really enjoyed the John Deere tournament in Moline, Ill. The tournament puts on a fun night Tuesday called the Big Dig. With some instruction, we were given the opportunity to jump in any of John Deere’s major construction equipment; bulldozers, backhoes, dump trucks, anything we wanted. In addition to the equipment, they put on a nice barbeque dinner and had some live music. The night was topped off with a performance by the professional operators that lasted about an hour and was put to music. It was a demonstration of what these big rigs could do. I’m always intrigued at the fascination of driving these big machines and how I could have just sat there for hours, digging a hole in the ground, and been perfectly content.

2005 results     How Rob Rashell stacked up on the PGA Tour this year. He made six of 25 cuts and earned $84,391. — 11/3-11/6: Southern Farm Bureau Classic (70-70-69-69—278, -10, 44th-tie, $9,070) — 9/22-9/25: Texas Open (67-73—140, Even, cut) — 9/15-9/18: 84 Lumber Classic (71-76—147, +3, cut) — 9/8-9/11: Canadian Open (72-73—145, +5, cut) — 9/2-9/5: Deutsche Bank Championship (75-73—148, +6, cut) — 8/25-8/28: Buick Championship (73-69—142, +2, cut) — 8/18-8/21: Reno-Tahoe Open (77-77—154, +10, cut) — 7/21-7/24: U.S. Bank Championship (71-72—143, +3, cut) — 7/14-7/17: B.C. Open (74-70—144, Even, cut) — 7/7-7/10: John Deere Classic (72-72—144, +2, cut) — 6/30-7/3: Western Open (72-72—144, +2, cut) — 6/23-6/26: Barclays Classic (75-73—148, +6, cut) — 6/16-6/19: U.S. Open (74-72-73-74—293, +13, 42th-tie, $26,223) — 5/26-5/29: St. Jude Classic (73-68-69-71—281, +1, 39th-tie, $20,090) — 4/28-5/1: Zurich Classic (74-73—147, +3, cut) — 4/21-24: Houston Open (78-73—151, +7, cut) — 3/31-4/3: BellSouth Classic (79-73—152, +8, cut) — 3/10-3/13: Honda Classic (73-68-76-70—287, -1, 58th-tie, $12,100) — 2/24-2/27: Chrysler Classic (71-68-71-75—285, -3, 64th-tie, $6,300) — 2/17-2/20: Nissan Open (73-72—145, +3, cut) — 2/10-2/13: Pebble Beach Pro-Am (72-75-73—220, +4, cut) — 2/3-2/6: FBR Open (77-74—151, +9, cut) — 1/26-1/30: Bob Hope Classic (66-76-73-72—287, -1, cut) — 1/20-1/23: Buick Invitational (73-72—145, +1, cut) — 1/13-1/16: Sony Open (73-67-74-69—283, +3, 56th-tie, $10,608)

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