Golf: Geary gains ticket to Nationwide

New Zealand golfer Josh Geary will play more than 25 tournaments next year on the Nationwide Tour. Photo / Getty Images

New Zealand golfer Josh Geary did not have to look far to find a silver lining to his failed bid to qualify for the PGA Tour in the United States yesterday.

The 26-year-old ended the third and final stage of the tour's qualifying school with a two-over-par 74 on the Crooked Cat course at Orange National in Florida, leaving him in a share of 50th place and well outside the top 25 who earned entry on to next year's PGA Tour.

However, he was comfortably inside the mark for those whose consolation is a place on the second tier Nationwide Tour, where the Tauranga golfer will have a full schedule of more than 25 tournaments to ply his trade next year.

It will mark the first time since he turned professional in late 2006 that Geary has had a regular tour to call home - and it will serve only to accelerate his development.

Geary tied for fourth at last year's New Zealand Open near Queenstown and is due to contest the Australian PGA Championship on Queensland's Sunshine Coast starting tomorrow. He has the raw credentials to distance himself from the journeymen.

All he has lacked is the opportunity to compete regularly to a planned schedule, but he has earned that chance after holding his own to shoot five-under 426 through six rounds of the qualifying school's torture test.

It came on the back of a thin schedule of events on the Canada Tour, where he earned around $45,000 this year.

Geary needed to shoot low yesterday to have any chance of jumping into the top 25 and made the turn at even par before a double bogey at the 13th derailed his chances.

He is one of three New Zealanders to clip his Nationwide ticket, with Danny Lee and Tim Wilkinson finishing two shots behind him in a tie for 64th after shooting 74 and 71 in the closing round respectively.

While Wilkinson is certain to accept his Nationwide status after losing his PGA Tour card this year following a nasty hand injury, Lee is sure to stay in Europe.

Geary and Wilkinson will join compatriot Brad Iles as fully exempt Nationwide players next season.

Another two New Zealanders, Michael Hendry and Steve Alker, will have conditional status - very limited starts - on the north American second tier circuit in 2011.

- NZPA