There have been too many times this season that Chandler Phillips cares to count when he’s hit a decent tee ball that finished a yard off the fairway and screwed him. Too many times that he hit a quality iron shot and he just couldn’t get the subsequent putt to fall. Too many times that the sum of the parts didn’t add up to worthwhile results.

“Can you tell I’m over it?” Phillips said Friday at the Butterfield Bermuda Championship, not in anger but in exhaustion from banging his head against the proverbial wall and not progressing.

It’s been that type of year for Phillips, the second-year TOUR member from Texas. In his first year on TOUR, Phillips contended for a win – sharing the 36-hole lead at the Valspar Championship and ultimately finishing third – and comfortably kept his card. This year has been a different story. Other than a hot run in April with three top 20s in four starts, Phillip’s season has been forgettable. Just one top-10, 12 missed cuts, plenty of frustration and no true moments of contention

Until this week.

Phillips shot a 7-under 64 on Friday at Port Royal Golf Club to jump into a tie for second at the Butterfield Bermuda. At 139th in the FedExCup with just two events to play, Phillips' path to another year on the PGA TOUR is narrow, but clear. A win would guarantee his card, a runner-up would put him on the top-100 bubble and anything else wouldn’t be good enough. Phillips has come to peace with that reality, ready for the season to end one way or another.

“To tell you the truth, I'm pretty over this year,” Phillips said. “Like it's been a struggle, but I'm waiting for that finish line.”

Whether that finish line leads him to another year on the PGA TOUR or back down to the Korn Ferry Tour is still to be determined. A similar situation played out a year ago in Bermuda for Rafael Campos, who started the week outside the top-140 and had resigned to the fact that his stint on TOUR was ending. There was little to predict the week Campos would end up having – he had just two made cuts in the previous six months – but Campos charged into contention with a Saturday 62 and outlasted the field on Sunday to win the event and turn the tide of his season and career.

Is there something to the freedom that comes over a golfer who has nothing left to lose, resigned to the fact that the end of the line is near? Campos articulated it and Phillips concurred.

“I don't know how to explain it, but it's just like you're not thinking of, oh, you know, I need a top-20 this week or I just need to make the cut,” Phillips said. “Well, I mean, that's never a good mindset even if you are in a really good position to keep your card or whatever. You've got to have the mindset of try to win every week, and if you don't, you might as well not even show up.”

Phillips stumbled out of the gate early on Friday, bogeying his first hole, the 10th at Port Royal. But he quickly dotted the board with circles, making birdies at No. 13 and No. 14 and an eagle at the par-5 17th. He added four more birdies on his inward nine to shoot 64. Not included in those birdies were two crucial par saves – one from 120 yards on No. 1 and from 75 yards on No. 4. Those were the types of up-and-downs he’s seldom pulled off this season, and his current care-free mindset helped pull off.

“I didn't try to force anything. It was just like, OK, if I make bogey, whatever. But I ended up getting them up and down,” Phillips said. “And it's just like I tell myself all the time that, you know, to do that, but I see a window or I think I can hit a shot and then that's when I get myself in like more trouble.”

There will be plenty of crucial moments over the final two rounds in Bermuda, and Phillips has little wiggle room to work with. He’s accepted that. It might just help push him over the edge.

“I only have one option and that's to go out there and try to win because if I don't, I'm not keeping my card,” he said. “It's just -- obviously, yeah, I've thought about it but there's no -- there's not a lot of answers to it. There's just one answer. It's just go out there and try to ball out. If it happens, it happens. If not, you know, try to go fix what's wrong for the year.”