Golf: Keeping the dream alive on the Nationwide Tour

New Zealand's Steven Alker. Photo / Simon Baker

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.


Imagine turning up for a golf tournament knowing that you might have to shoot up to 28 strokes under par in four rounds just to win.

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 Tour 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.

Phil Tataurangi

Phil Tataurangi 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 return 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.

"If you win on the Nationwide Tour you can win anywhere. It's a very good tour and there's a lot of good players, obviously. So it does give you confidence knowing these guys go up to the PGA Tour and dominate straight away."

A host of Kiwi golfers have played on the Nationwide Tour during the past few years, including the likes of Brad Iles, Mike Hendry, Richard Lee, Danny Lee and Tim Wilkinson.

Lee was one of the big success stories of the 2011 tour as the youngster finished sixth on the money list, including a victory at the WNB Golf Classic and earned a PGA Tour card for next year.

Steve Alker

While Lee carved out a niche on the greens, veteran Kiwi Steve Alker experienced the downside of the tour and the harsh realities that came with it - the 40-year-old banked only US$16,904 during the year and finished 153rd on the money list.

He will hold on to his card for 2012 through exemptions due to past tournament victories and the Arizona-based right-hander says the tour has been challenging for him in recent times.

"It's been the last couple of years really. I just haven't been on top of my game. I actually started the year pretty well ... it kind of went a little bit from there. I took a few weeks off and didn't come back strong," he says.

"So, again, you know, you're playing these courses, I'm shooting par, one under, two under and not even making the cut out there. It was that kind of year. I was steady, but just no low scores."

Alker, who turned pro in 1995, says if you're a young player about to head out on the Nationwide Tour, which you can join via a qualifying school, you need to have a desire to perform.

"Have a little bit of backing," Alker says. "And if you go out and do it properly, get your caddy and just be prepared to spend a few bucks and you've got to get your focus on the top 25, because you're not going to survive out there all the time just playing there all the time and if you want to get on the big show that's the place to be."

Alker found his way on to the big show as a Nationwide Tour graduate in 2002 - when it was known as the Buy.com Tour - after finishing fourth on the money list and the 2009 New Zealand PGA Championship winner has also played on the European Tour and its developmental Challenge Tour.

He ranks 99th for all-time career earnings on the Nationwide Tour and if 2012 doesn't go well for him results-wise he might not hold on to his card, but he says he doesn't want to hang up the clubs yet.

"I'd like to think my game's in pretty good shape and at the end of the day it gets down to the putting and it and giving yourself chances. I'd like to think [I can continue]. If it doesn't happen in the States, I'd like to play somewhere else, just keep playing."

The father of two is also mindful that what he does on the greens also impacts just more than him and with two young children to consider it's another added pressure.

"We are just trying to get them settled and it partly depends on my performances as to where we base ourselves and keep ourselves going."

In 2012 there will be 27 tournaments held on the Nationwide Tour, starting with Pacific Rubiales Colombia Championship in February, which boasts a US$600,000 purse with $108,000 for the winner.

There's a good chance there will be a sprinkling of Kiwis in the mix, including Tataurangi, Geary and Alker, back on the hunt for that elusive top-25 spot.