Steve Allan took just one round to accomplish what it took Matt Jones four gut wrenching weeks to achieve but both will be happy to take their place in the field for this week’s season opening Safeway Open on the PGA TOUR.

Allan Monday qualified for the event while Jones was one of 25 players to earn a 2017-2018 PGA TOUR card at the conclusion of last week’s Web.com Tour Championship.

The pair, joined by Greg Chalmers and Aaron Baddeley at the Silverado Resort in the Napa Valley wine country, share the same goal but will face very different pressures come Thursday.

For Allan the stakes are at their highest, the 43-year-old lost his playing privileges on the Web.com Tour at the end of the season a little over a month ago.

That means he needs to finish in the top-10 this week to earn a spot in next week’s field or face Monday qualifying again.

For Jones there is little time to celebrate his brilliant play in the last two weeks to win back a TOUR card as he needs to post good results early in the season to improve his eligibility ranking.

In the PGA TOUR pecking order the 50 players who gain cards by graduating from the secondary Tour are a fair way down the priority list which dictates entry into tournaments.

Jones starts the week 34^th on that list with the goal to be as high as possible when the first of six re-ranking dates rolls around in November.

The only way to move up the list is to post good results so despite playing the last four weeks straight Jones will need to remain in form to get his season off to a positive start.

Working against the 2015 Emirates Australian Open champion is both previous form in the event (three missed cuts in six appearances and a best of T35) and fatigue but on the up side his game is in a good place, as evidenced the past two weeks.

Allan has played the tournament just once, as a PGA TOUR member in 2008, but posted a top-10 result so has some good, though distant memories, to draw on.

Chalmers and Baddeley both have moderate records here, Baddeley playing the weekend five times in nine attempts with a best of T11 in 2008 while Chalmers plays for the fifth time having never finished better than T50.