Nationwide Tour road comes to an end in Alabama

BY Bruce Young | Nationwide Tour | 2005 Nationwide Tour Championship | Wrap | 31 Oct 2005

The long and windy road that is the Nationwide Tour has finally come to and end. For some it is the road that leads to the highway that is the PGA Tour and for others it has reached a dead end.

Perhaps as many as sixteen players here knew they had PGA Tour cards heading into this week’s Nationwide Tour Championship. It would be important in this last event of the 2005 season, however, to make a move that would guarantee not only security of tenure in 2006 on the PGA Tour, but to ensure that they would finish as high as possible on the Nationwide Tour’s money list.

There were opportunities for players outside the top twenty one to gazump those on the cusp and for two players that is exactly what happened. David Branshaw, who entered the week in 29th place made the biggest move of all when he won the event and moved into 7th place but so did Eric Axley who, in chasing Branshaw home, found himself being presented with a PGA Tour card by Commissioner Finchem.

The two who had PGA status in their grasp and let it go were Bill Haas and Tom Scherrer. Haas bogeyed four of the last seven holes to slip to 23rd on the money list while Scherrer made a belated rally with two birdies in the last three holes but the damage had been done for him with his second round 77.

36-year-old Branshaw returns to the PGA Tour after having been there for one season in 2004. He finished 169th that year and was not able to regain his status but he now has a second chance to establish himself in the biggest golfing arena of all. Axley made his way onto the Nationwide Tour via Monday qualifying and after missing the cut at the Virginia Beach event in April, he won two weeks later in Raleigh and gone were the concerns of getting starts. He played well from that point on but still needed something special this week and he managed just that with his runner up placing and he now joins those at the holy grail of golf, the US PGA Tour.

The five Australians who were all but assured of their PGA Tour cards did well but only Steve Bowditch and Mathew Goggin improved their positions. Bowditch had the chance to move to second on the money list if he could have maintained the second position he had with nine holes to go today but he would drop three shots on the way home and although he slipped to 5th in the event, he improved to fourth on the money list. It could be significant in the early part of next year when fields for those early season tournaments are being finalised.

Mathew Goggin improved his money list position from 10th to 9th today by finishing 6th and he is back on the PGA Tour where he played for four years until 2003.

David McKenzie, Greg Chalmers and Nathan Green are also there and can now look forward to playing events for ten times the purses they have played for in 2005. They have now had the benefit of a very competitive tour to hone their skills and get their game and mind prepared for what is to come. As Branshaw said in his post round interview with the Golf Channel’s Jerry Foltz, “This tour is only different to the USPGA Tour in purses. In every other respect the Tour do their most to create an environment that replicates that which we will play next year”.

While Branshaw may be right in that assessment, the real test will come when he and his fellow graduates front up in Hawaii next year. Many come and go in their first season at the higher level but at least now they have reached the dream that so many professional golfers have, namely that of being a PGA Tour player.