Keeping the dream alive on the Nationwide Tour
The Nationwide Tour is something of an unknown to most Kiwi sports fans, yet plenty of New Zealand golf players have tried their luck on the gruelling circuit in the past few years in search of a PGA Tour card.
DANIEL RICHARDSON of APNZ talked to three Kiwis who have played on the Nationwide Tour recently and experienced the highs and lows of what it has to offer.
What's worse is that you might enter a tournament, shoot under the card and still not even make the cut and you have to go back to the range or putting green without a pay cheque.
There's also a good chance you have been billeted in a house with six other guys for the tournament. It's not exactly a five star hotel.
This is just another week on the Nationwide Tour.
It's the golf tour that serves as the feeder competition to the big dance, the PGA Tour, where players can earn millions of dollars a year and have their names engraved on the most prestigious trophies in the sport.
Your mission when you begin the year on the Nationwide T Men Nike Roshe Run Anti-Fur our is to finish the season in the top 25 money earners and if you are good enough to do that you're given your card to the PGA tour your shot at the big time.
In recent years US graduates who have left university have it slightly better off with dribs and drabs of endorsement money and a few travel subsidies, but the older players on tour still fund nearly all their way around.
These are golfers who aren't household names but are guys you certainly wouldn't want to play against if your life depended on it. has played on and off on the Nationwide Tour since the mid 1990s.
The winner of the 1996 Tri Cities Open, when the tour was known as the Nike Tour, Tataurangi also won the Invensys Classic in Las Vegas on the PGA Tour in 2002.
"If you are a long term player on the Nationwide Tour you're not really making a living. You're paying for expenses. It's an expensive tour to play on and it is extremely competitive," Tataurangi says.
"The tour's got it pretty much set up that way. It's not there to make any money. It's like you're just there for a purpose to pretty much get to the PGA Tour and if you make a couple of bucks on the way then it's a bonus."
Since the tour was formalised in 1990, when it was originally called the Ben Hogan Tour, there have been 22 players who have cracked the million dollar milestone in career earnings.
Not bad wedge by any means, but the catch here is the guys on this tour don't have the subsidies the players in the tier above do and that is the earnings before tax and expenses.
Josh Geary
Kiwi Josh Geary represents the new breed of player on the Nationwide Tour and the 27 year old from Tauranga experienced one of his better years on the circuit in 2011.
Despite not earning huge money around NZ$100,000 Geary finished 74th on the money list and will have conditional status for certain events next year and will need to start the season in good nick to keep his card for the year.
"It's actually been the best of the last four years for me," Geary says. "It's better money, plus a bit of endorsement money helps whereas the previous years have been very low endorsement money, plus small purses. So it's actually the first year I've had a bit of breathing space. It's been a more expensive year because I've had to hire a full time caddy, but it's also been more comfortable out there."
Although the world economy has experienced all sorts of turmoil during the past few years, the money in golf has been a constant and, as Geary points out, the purses continue to increase.
The prizes are extremely top heavy and a tournament victory backed up with a top three finish will pretty much guarantee your spot in the top 25 money earners.
Having to play well to ensure you can not only eat, but earn your tour card for the following season is daunting, but Geary says the key is to not let it dominate your thinking.
"You know it's always there, but you try and put it out of your mind, I guess, and just sort of do what you can do. You can't really control much else. You just go through the motions and just try and post [a good score] and the rest of it comes with it. If you start thinking about it and pressing it and pressing, it just ends up being worse and more frustrating and you end up in a bad place."
So aside from not having to worry about securing your card, the quality of the field is another factor.
The players who don't hold on to their PGA Tour card by finishing in the top 125 on the money list drop out of the big dance and if they miss their chance to get back on tour via qualifying school they r nike eturn to the Nationwide circuit.
American Keegan Bradley, who finished 14th on the Nationwide Tour in 2010 to earn his PGA Tour card for 2011, won the PGA Championship in 2011 and became one of only three players to have won in their major tournament debut. That's an indication of how good the players are on the feeder tour.
"I think because of the mix of guys coming up through, you've got the old guys that have been there for years and know the courses and are full of experience and also the guys coming down from the PGA Tour, who have won on the PGA Tour. Even major champions are playing some weeks, so that's why there's a lot of talent," Geary says.