Valley Golfers Bag PGA Tour Cards

There is a check in the mail with his name on it, but Ted Lehmann of Thousand Oaks doesn’t care if it ever arrives.

Lehmann won $880 Monday after tying for 11th place at La Quinta in the final PGA Tour qualifying event of 1986, but the stipend is just an added bonus.

The real prize for Lehmann was his first PGA Tour card, which he earned as one of the top 50 finishers in a two-month series of qualifying events. The card exempts Lehmann, 26, from qualifying for most PGA tournaments.

“The least of my concerns was the money,” Lehmann said. “Making the tour is something I’ve dreamed about since I was 13.”

The dream also came true for Duffy Waldorf of Tarzana, who shot a six-round total of eight-under par 425 to earn $2,853 and his own tour card. Lehmann shot two-under par 430.

For Lehmann, runner-up in the CIF state championship as a senior at Thousand Oaks High in 1978, it was the third consecutive year he had qualified for the final tournament.

Past failures left him to compete on the so-called PGA mini-tour and in Asia and Australia.