NATIONWIDE TOUR

Golf's 'Nationwide Tour' is the developmental tour for the U.S. based PGA Tour, and features professional golfers who have either failed to score well enough at that level's Qualifying School (the main tour's qualifying tournament, popularly referred to as "Q-School") to earn their PGA Tour card, or who have done so but then failed to win enough money to stay at that level. Those who are on the top 25 of the money list at year's end are given PGA Tour memberships for the next season.
The earlier "satellite tour" was formalized by the PGA Tour in 1990 and was initially called the ''Ben Hogan Tour'' in honor of golf great Ben Hogan. In 1990 there were thirty events, and the typical event purse was $100,000. The name was later changed to the ''Nike Tour'' in 1993, and the ''Buy.com Tour'' in 2000 in naming rights deals. The current name is a result of the purchase of naming rights by Nationwide Insurance in 2003. In 2007 there are 32 events, one each in Australia, New Zealand and Panama, and the remainder in the United States. The events in Australia and New Zealand are co-sanctioned by the PGA Tour of Australasia. Purses range from $450,000 to $775,000, which is about one tenth of the level on the PGA Tour.
All Nationwide Tour tournaments operate similar to typical PGA Tour tournaments in that they are all 72-hole stroke play events with a cut made after 36 holes. The cut on the Nationwide Tour is for the top 60 players and ties, unlike 70 for the PGA Tour. The fields are usually 144 or 156 players, depending on time of year (and available daylight hours). For the aforementioned international events, the joint tour will split players spots with the nationwide tour for proper sanctioning. As with the PGA Tour, the winner of the tournament will get a prize of 18% of the total purse.
Since this tour is a developmental tour, players are usually vying to play well enough to gain status on the PGA Tour. The main ways of having status for the Nationwide Tour are to finish in a group of the top 50 golfers at qualifying school after the top 30 and ties, those who finished between 26th and 65th on the previous year's money list, and those who were formally fully exempt on the PGA Tour in the recent past. Around 14 open qualifying spots are given during the Monday of tournament week, and those who finished in the top 25 of a Nationwide event are automatically exempt into the next tournament. Past PGA Tour winners aged 48 and 49 can play on the Nationwide tour on an increased basis to prepare themselves for the Champions Tour.
Since 1997, a player who wins three tournaments in one year on the Nationwide Tour receives an immediate promotion to the PGA Tour for the remainder of the year. This "performance promotion" (informally sometimes referred to as a "battlefield promotion") has occurred eight times[1]:

★ 1997 Chris Smith

★ 2001 Heath Slocum, Chad Campbell, Pat Bates

★ 2002 Patrick Moore

★ 2003 Tom Carter

★ 2005 Jason Gore

★ 2007 Nick Flanagan
In 2007 Paul Claxton became the first man to reach US$1 million in Nationwide Tour career earnings. ^[1]
The Nationwide Tour is one of the nine tours on which Official World Golf Rankings points are available, and one of only two developmental tours that offer ranking points, the other being the Europe-based Challenge Tour.

Contents

Career money leaders

2007 schedule

Money list winners

See also

References

External links

Career money leaders

This list is as of the National Mining Association Pete Dye Classic on August 26, 2007.

Rank	Player	Country	Prize money (US$)
1	Paul Claxton		1,175,006
2	Tom Scherrer		1,028,198
3	Chris Couch		984,975
4	Jeff Gove		973,708
5	Darron Stiles		956,630
6	Tripp Isenhour		931,091
7	Pat Bates		919,491
8	Craig Bowden		913,347
9	Franklin Langham		894,531
10	Jason Dufner		854,509

''Full List''

2007 schedule

The table below shows the Nationwide Tour's 2007 schedule. The numbers in parentheses after winners' names show the player's total number of wins on the Nationwide Tour including that event. No one accumulates many wins on the Nationwide Tour because success at this level soon leads to promotion to the PGA Tour.

Week	Tournament	State/Country	Winner
Jan 25-28	Movistar Panama Championship	Panama	Miguel Carballo (1)
Feb 15-18	Jacob's Creek Open Championship	Australia	Scott Sterling (1)
Feb 22-25	HSBC New Zealand PGA Championship	New Zealand	Nicholas Thompson (1)
Mar 22-25	Chitimacha Louisiana Open	Louisiana	Skip Kendall (3)
Mar 29 - Apr 1	Livermore Valley Wine Country Championship	California	Omar Uresti (2)
Apr 12-15	South Georgia Classic	Georgia	John Kimbell (1)
Apr 19-22	Athens Regional Foundation Classic	Georgia	Martin Laird (1)
Apr 26-29	Henrico County Open	Virginia	Nick Flanagan (1)
May 3-6	Fort Smith Classic	Arkansas	Jay Williamson (1)
May 17-20	BMW Charity Pro-Am at The Cliffs	South Carolina	Nick Flanagan (2)
May 24-27	Melwood Prince George's County Open	Maryland	Paul Claxton (2)
May 31 - Jun 3	LaSalle Bank Open	Illinois	John Riegger (1)
June 7-10	Rex Hospital Open	North Carolina	Kyle Thompson (1)
June 14-17	Showdown at Somerby	Minnesota	Chris Riley (1)
June 21-24	Knoxville Open	Tennessee	Chez Reavie (1)
June 28 - July 1	Peek'n Peak Classic	New York	Roland Thatcher (2)
July 5-8	Legend Financial Group Classic	Ohio	Jason Day (1)
July 12-15	Nationwide Children's Hospital Invitational	Ohio	Daniel Summerhays (n/a)
July 19-22	Price Cutter Charity Championship	Missouri	Tom Scherrer (3)
Jul 26-29	Cox Classic	Nebraska	Roland Thatcher (3)
Aug 2-5	Preferred Health Systems Wichita Open	Kansas	Brad Elder (3)
Aug 9-12	Northeast Pennsylvania Classic	Pennsylvania	Justin Bolli (2)
Aug 16-19	Xerox Classic	New York	Nick Flanagan (3)
Aug 23-26	National Mining Association Pete Dye Classic	West Virginia	Jimmy Walker (3)
Sep 6-9	Utah EnergySolutions Championship	Utah
Sep 13-16	Oregon Classic	Oregon
Sep 20-23	Albertsons Boise Open	Idaho
Oct 4-7	Mark Christopher Charity Classic	California
Oct 11-14	WNB Golf Classic	Texas
Oct 18-21	Chattanooga Classic	Tennessee
Oct 25-28	Miccosukee Championship	Florida
Nov 9-12	Nationwide Tour Championship at Barona Creek	California

''2006 Nationwide Tour Schedule''

Money list winners

Year	Money winner	Earnings (US$)
Nationwide Tour
2006	Ken Duke	382,443
2005	Troy Matteson	495,009
2004	Jimmy Walker	371,346
2003	Zach Johnson	494,882
BUY.COM Tour
2002	Patrick Moore	381,965
2001	Chad Campbell	394,552
2000	Spike McRoy	300,638
NIKE Tour
1999	Carl Paulson	223,051
1998	Bob Burns	178,664
1997	Chris Smith	225,201
1996	Stewart Cink	251,699
1995	Jerry Kelly	188,878
1994	Chris Perry	167,148
1993	Sean Murphy	166,293
Ben Hogan Tour
1992	John Flannery	164,115
1991	Tom Lehman	141,934
1990	Jeff Maggert	108,644

See also

★ Professional golf tours

★ Challenge Tour - the analogous tour in Europe operated by the PGA European Tour

★ Gateway Tour - a third tier tour in the United States

★ NGA Hooters Tour - another third tier tour in the United States

References

1. PG County Open victory makes Claxton first million-dollar man''pgatour.com'', May 27, 2007

External links

★ Official site

★ How to become a new Nationwide Tour member - pgatour.com article of January 17, 2007 detailing the options for getting onto the Nationwide Tour, both on a regular basis and for a single event.