NEWS

Notes from the Nationwide Tour
 
Jun. 12, 2007
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• Woody Austin's win last week at the Stanford St. Jude Championship was the 205th PGA TOUR win by a former Nationwide Tour player. It was the ninth this year.

• Eight current Nationwide Tour members will be playing this week at the U.S. Open -- Martin Laird, Ricky Barnes, Todd Fischer, Jon Mills, Joe Daley, Tom Byrum, Darron Stiles and Lee Williams.

• Nine members of the Class of 2006 will be competing this week at the U.S. Open -- Ken Duke, Johnson Wagner, Craig Kanada, Michael Putnam, Boo Weekley, Andrew Buckle, Jason Dufner, Brandt Snedeker and Tripp Isenhour.

• 2007 NCAA champion Jamie Lovemark received a sponsor exemption into this week's Rochester Area Charities Showdown at Somerby presented by Think. It will mark the first Nationwide Tour appearance for Lovemark who just finished his freshman year at USC. He's still an amateur.

  • The Rochester Area Showdown at Somerby returns to Somerby Golf Club after playing the first two events at Troy Burne Golf Club in Hudson, WI. Last year, the 7,025-yard par-72 layout played to an average of 71.462, making it the 27th-toughest course of the season.

  • It has taken playoffs to decide two of the first three events. The first tournament decided by extra holes came in 2005 when Kevin Stadler won a four-man playoff over Mathew Goggin, Kyle Thompson and Chris Tidland. A year ago, Brandt Snedeker defeated Jeff Quinney in a two-hole playoff.

  • The two sponsor's exemptions this week are going to Jamie Lovemark and Marc Leishman. Leishman is one of Australia's brightest stars and is currently 48th on the Nationwide Tour money list after playing only two events. He tied for third and tied for 10th at the Jacob's Creek Open Championship and HSBC New Zealand PGA Championship, respectively, earlier this season. Lovemark is the NCAA individual champion from USC.

  • Somerby Golf Club's toughest hole a year ago was the par-4 16th. It was the 39th-most-difficult hole on Tour in 2006, but champion Brandt Snedeker didn't have any trouble there. In the first and second rounds, he parred the hole. On the weekend, he had a pair of birdies.

  • Players only set one scoring record last year, the Somerby Golf Club's 18-hole mark. Both Jaco Van Zyl and Jon Turcott fired 8-under 64s. Van Zyl did it in the second round and eventually tied for 65th. Turcott, a Monday qualifier, opened with a 64 to take the first-round lead and eventually settled for a tie for sixth.