No. 1 spot now in sight for Price at next tournament

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Springfield, Mo. -- After winning last week's first $1 million Nationwide Tour event in West Virginia, Rick Price can now set his sights on No. 1 on the money list as the Tour heads west to the Price Cutter Charity Championship presented by Dr. Pepper. The Nationwide Tour Players Cup win was the second for the Reading, Pa., native and he collected the largest individual paycheck, $180,000, in Tour history. In so doing, he leaped from No. 46 to No. 3 on the money list with $249,283 in earnings, all but assuring himself one of the 25 PGA TOUR cards that will be awarded at season's end in November for 2009.

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Rick Price took home $180,000 in first-place winnings at the Nationwide Tour Players Cup.

The incentives to lead the money list at the end of year are significant. No. 1 will be fully-exempt on the PGA TOUR next year and receive an invitation to play in THE PLAYERS Championship at the TOUR's home, TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.

Price, who now resides in Jupiter, Fla., will be playing in the Price Cutter Charity Championship for the fifth time. His best finish in five starts is a tie for 57th. The tournament is one of four original events still on the Nationwide Tour's schedule dating back to the Tour's inception in 1990. It is joined by Knoxville, Tenn., Boise, Idaho, and Wichita, Kan. Past champions include Tommy Tolles, Stewart Cink, Chris DiMarco, Pat Perez and, last year, Tom Scherrer.

In its 19 years, all at host Highland Springs Country Club, the winning score has never been higher than 272, 16-under-par, at the par-72 course. If Price and his fellow competitors have any intentions of gaining ground on No. 1 Jarrod Lyle and No. 2 Greg Chalmers on the money list, they're going to have to go low. First prize in the $600,000 event is $108,000.

Lyle leads the Tour's money list ($284,619) for the third consecutive week and tenth overall. A win in Springfield would give him an immediate three-win promotion to the PGA TOUR. Earlier this year, Lyle won the Mexico Open and Knoxville Open presented by Food City. The Australian, who is playing the Price Cutter Charity Championship for the first time, has a lead of just under $35,000 over countryman Chalmers ($249,761), who is idle this week.

Next week, the Nationwide Tour remains in the Midwest for the Nationwide Children's Hospital Invitational in Columbus, Ohio. The $750,000 second-year event includes the participation of NCAA Division I first-team All-Americans Kevin Chappell of UCLA, Jonas Blixt of Florida State, Rickie Fowler of Oklahoma State, Sihwan Kim of Stanford, Rory Hie and Jamie Lovemark of USC and Michael Thompson of Alabama.