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By Dave Lagarde
PGATOUR.com Correspondent

Most golfers are, by nature, goal oriented. And Roland Thatcher, heretofore, a rather obscure player with two years of PGA TOUR experience, is one of them.

Thatcher, 30, decided to shoot for the moon before the start of the 2007 Nationwide Tour season. He made it his singular goal to become the Tour's leading money winner.

Noble aspiration, that. Why not reach for the stars? But a quick glance at Thatcher's professional resumé might suggest the former Auburn Tiger was being, well, a bit ambitious, considering his professional body of work.

There were those two seasons in The Big Show that could be termed frustrating, at best. He made 49 starts and just 21 cuts, accumulating only a pair of top 10s with an average finish of 175th on the all-important money list.

Thatcher fared better in three full seasons on the Nationwide Tour, winning the 2002 Bank of America Monterrey Peninsula Classic while always maintaining his playing privileges. Still, he never could squeeze into the tour's top 20 money winners, each of whom moved on to the PGA TOUR the follow season.

Given those facts, it's easy to understand why a casual observer might think Thatcher's goal of being No. 1 was a bit overstated. So maybe Thatcher knew something no one else did. Maybe he saw everything coming together near the end of 2006 despite finishing 55th on the Nationwide Tour money list and tied for 54th in the finals of the PGA TOUR Qualifying Tournament.

Actually, what Thatcher knew was he finally had found a short game -- and especially a serviceable putting stroke -- that would combine with superior ball-striking skills to make him a Nationwide Tour terror who has doubled his pleasure and his Nationwide career victory total 20 events into the 2007 season.

And one does not have to look hard to find Thatcher's name on the 2007 money list. It's right where he aimed to be -- No. 1. Isn't it great when someone can walk the walk after talking the talk?

Actually, Thatcher has earned the right to shout after his second victory of 2007, an electrifying one-shot nail biter over Australian wunderkind, Jason Day, who pushed Thatcher to the outer par limits in the Cox Classic presented by Chevrolet. Thatcher drew even with Nick Flanagan in the 2007 win column when he carded a dead red total of 24-under on the shooting gallery known as Champions Run. He needed every eagle and birdie to edge Day, who closed with rounds of 62-63 that included a lights out 18-hole total of 57 on the front side on the weekend.

"I'm above and beyond where I expected to be at this time of the year," said Thatcher, who has banked $371,204 with 12 events remaining and certainly can draw bead on Troy Matteson's Nationwide Tour cash-grab record of $495,009 set in 2005.

Thatcher is the seventh player to climb to the top of the money mountain this season. But with $100,000 and change lead -- the largest after 20 events in Tour history -- on Day and Paul Claxton, the man he replaced this week, he'll likely be there for a while. Unless he wins again to earn an immediate performance promotion to the PGA TOUR, that is.

As stated, this was Thatcher's plan all along. He was paying attention at the close of 2006 when the powers that be at PGA TOUR headquarters decided the Nationwide's leading money winner (Ken Duke with $382,443) would be granted full playing status in '07. That means Duke would not be subjected to those status reshuffles that can make it awfully difficult for Nationwide Tour graduates and Q-School qualifiers to gain entry into events should they play poorly on the season-opening West Coast swing.

Slow starts put Thatcher behind the 8-ball in his two seasons ("poor experiences," he said) in The Big Show. So he understood the importance of what becoming numero uno means.

"You can pick and choose the events you want to play in," he said. "There's no stress should you begin slowly, and you certainly will get into more tournaments. It's nothing but beneficial."

So, obviously, was the work Thatcher did with short game guru Stan Utley. The solid foundation gave him and swing coach Mark Steinbauer a base in which to build. As a matter of fact, Steinbauer did a cameo as Thatcher's caddie the week before at the Price Cutter Charity Championship presented by Dr Pepper. It served as a test drive after Thatcher, who has rung up 12 top 25s in 18 events, finished in a tie for 42nd and a tie for 38th in his previous two starts.

"We made some very minor adjustments," he said of his week of work with Steinbauer, who works at The Club at Carlton Woods in The Woodlands, Texas. "I was right back on track in a heartbeat."

And it showed last week. That's not all though, Thatcher fully expects his newfound game (he admitted he needed "a lot to go right" with his putting for him to contend) to be around for a while.

"I made a conscious effort to change," he said. "I had to because I basically was trying to limp balls into the hole. I believe I was in the bottom 10 in putting stats in both years (on the PGA TOUR).

"Now I feel like I'm far more prepared to get out there and stay."