Two-time winners looking for promotion in Pennsylvania  The Nationwide Tour makes its yearly stop in Pennsylvania this week for the eighth annual Northeast Pennsylvania Classic at the Glenmaura National Golf Club in Moosic, just outside Scranton, for the only PGA TOUR-sanctioned event in the Keystone state.  Flanagan (left) and Thatcher each have two wins on the Nationwide Tour this season. (WireImage)
Two-time winners Nick Flanagan and Roland Thatcher will both be in the field after missing last week's Preferred Health Systems Wichita Open. Flanagan and Thatcher are the only players on Tour who are one win away from an automatic three-win promotion to the PGA TOUR. Thatcher collected his second win in his last start in Omaha, Neb. two weeks ago, outlasting rising 19-year-old star Jason Day of Australia by one shot. Thatcher leads the money list with $371,204. With Day idle this week, No. 3 Paul Claxton is his closest pursuer in the field with $270,921. Flanagan finds himself at No. 4 with $260,413, having played four fewer events. Nicholas Thompson and Omar Uresti, Nos. 5 and 6, respectively, are in Scranton, too. Glenmaura National Golf Club, a 6,990-yard, par-70 layout Michael Hurzden design, was rated eighth in Golf Digest's "Best New Private Course" in America category when it debuted in 1995. Built on a mountain, Glenmuara is home to wide fairways that are lined by large rocks and trees. Last year, Craig Bowden beat Jess Daley in a playoff, needing only a par on the first extra hole to capture his third Nationwide Tour title. While Bowden went on to earn his PGA TOUR card for 2007 and will not be in Scranton this week, Daley will be as he seeks his first win on the Nationwide Tour. Don't be surprised if this week's winner is a veteran. Players age 40 and older have won four of the previous seven Northeast Pennsylvania Classics. Entered this week are five previous winners, including Jeff Hart (2000), Jason Hill (2001), Gary Hallberg (2002), D.A. Points (2004) and Greg Kraft (2005). The biggest move into THE 25 last week was made by Wichita winner Brad Elder, who jumped from 45th position to 12th. Elder's rise dropped Australian Matthew Jones two spots down the list to the precarious No. 25 spot on the money list. Elder, who won last week after a four-week layoff due to injury, is in this week's field and would love nothing better than to join Thatcher and Flanagan as the Tour's only two-time winners. The Northeast Pennsylvania Classic is the 22nd of 32 events on the 2007 Nationwide Tour schedule. |
