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By Dave Lagarde
|PGATOUR.com Correspondent

BOISE, Idaho -- Maybe the contenders in the final round of the Albertson's Boise Open presented by First Health should have seen this round coming.

Jon Mills closed his round in Boise with an eagle-par-birdie finish. (WireImage)

After all, Jon Mills closed out his previous four events on the Nationwide Tour shooting 69, 69, 66 and 65.

So he didn't exactly pull Sunday's 7-under-par 64 out of his black Titleist hat. Feeding off the final-round momentum he produced his season's best number under difficult scoring conditions at the most opportune time, using an eagle-par-birdie finish to score a three-shot victory over D.A. Points that punched his return ticket to the PGA TOUR in 2008.

"It's nice, really nice,'' Mills said, flashing a satisfied smile. "If there was an event to win down the stretch it was this one.''

There's a simple reason. The Boise Open's purse is $675,000, second only to the LaSalle Bank Open among the 31 regular-season events on the Nationwide Tour. Mills' $121,500 first prize -- the biggest of career -- propelled the 29-year-old native of Oshawa, Ontario, Canada to the fifth spot among 'The 25' with a total of $282,283, a figure that underlines the metronomic consistency with which he has performed since the end of May.

Mills has missed just two cuts in 14 events in that time frame. But his victory Sunday, six top 10s and 10 top 25s rendered those two missed cuts meaningless.

"Every year I'm out on this tour I play better and better,'' Mills said. "Money-wise, I wasn't as high this year as the last time I played this tour (in 2005). But my consistency is way better. I've made a ton more cuts. I've gotten myself into position a lot more.''

That's a far cry from Mills' frustrating rookie season on the PGA TOUR in 2006 when very little went right for the 2005 Nationwide Tour graduate. It was as if Mills was running on a missed-cut treadmill. He played on the weekend a mere six times in 27 starts.

And he didn't do much when he had the opportunity. His season's best was tie for 42nd in his fifth event. He had just $65,494 in earnings and was buried in 227th place on the money list.

But Mills has made all the right moves after coming back to the Nationwide Tour. He even turned down a sponsor's exemption into his national championship, Canadian Open presented by Franklin Templeton Investments on the PGA TOUR, to concentrate on his goal of returning to The Big Show.

"It was tough, really tough,'' Mills said of his choice to play in Omaha instead. "It was something I obviously wanted to play in, but I thought in the long term trying to secure a tour card would be better than playing in one event.''

Consider it a valuable lesson learned. But Mills has been soaking in knowledge of what it takes for him to succeed ever since he was a junior golfer. And he has had the uncanny ability to turn negatives into positives through trial and error.

"It seems like every time I've moved up a level in this game I've needed a year to have a learning curve,'' Mills said. ''It even happened when I was a junior.

"But I've always believed in myself. I never questioned what I was doing.''

Mills has had several opportunities to let demon doubt affect his psyche. He first qualified for the Nationwide Tour in 2002, but performed poorly and returned to the Canadian Tour for a season. He was a better player when he was back at his Nationwide Tour work in 2004 and then broke out, finishing fifth on the money list with $325,806 in 2005. Those experiences taught him to expect success on his second tour of duty on the PGA TOUR.

"I know when I get back I'm going to play better and better,'' he said. "I know I can play at that level.''

The opportunity to prove it will come once he rings in the New Year. Until then his main focus will be on moving the money ladder to improve his status when he returns.

Mills, who hovered between 20th and 25th on the money list the past month, even talked about the possibility of returning to the finals of the PGA TOUR Qualifying Tournament if he finished between 15th and 25th on the money list.

The object was to take a shot at getting into more tournaments early.

But he took care of that conundrum when he rallied from three down at the beginning of the day to three up when the sun set on the foothills that surround Boise. He was wise enough to consider his final-round success over the last month and use it to his advantage Sunday.

"I thought about that before the round and fed off of it,'' he said.

That momentum set the table for a mighty fine feast.