Nationwide Tour Storylines: Movistar Panama Championship

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What: Movistar Panama Championship
When: Jan. 21 - 27
Where: Panama Golf Club, Panama City, Panama
Purse: $600,000
First Prize: $108,000
This is the season-opening event (1st of 30)
2007 Winner: Miguel Carballo

Miguel Carballo (WireImage)

• The season-long quest to secure one of 25 available PGA TOUR cards for the 2009 season begins on Thursday at the Panama Movistar Championship in Panama City, Panama. Miguel Carballo of Argentina, who finished 30th on last year's Nationwide Tour money list, returns as the defending champion. He was the first Argentinian to win a Nationwide Tour event. Panama Golf Club has a rich tradition of hosting the Nationwide Tour (since 2004) and "winter tour" events in the 1950s through the early 1980s. World Golf Hall of Fame members such as Roberto De Vicenzo (five times), Sam Snead (1954), Arnold Palmer (1956) and Curtis Strange (1981) are past winners at Panama GC. This week's field features 132 players and includes the first eight available money winners from the Tour de las Americas.

• The Nationwide Tour's 19th season is one of firsts, records and other highlights: 1) Record prize money of nearly $19 million.....2) Record average purse of $631,000.....3) The first two $1 million events in the Tour's history -- the Nationwide Tour Players Cup in West Virginia and the Nationwide Tour Championship at TPC Craig Ranch in McKinney, Texas......4) 61 international players (most ever) from 18 countries outside the U.S....5) Wayne Gretzky, with Ford as title sponsor, joins forces with Nationwide Tour to launch celebrity event in Ontario, Canada.....6) Nationwide Insurance begins the first year of a five-year extension that carries through 2012....7) A new advertising campaign and tagline, "PGA TOUR Driven", are introduced.....8) GOLF CHANNEL airs 16 tournaments....9) Nationwide Tour alumni membership on the PGA TOUR grows to 67% in 2008.

• Several new faces ages 22-24 and familiar to those who follow college and amateur golf launch their 2008 Nationwide Tour seasons in Panama and Mexico this week. In search of a PGA TOUR card are talented young players Matt Every (24), Colt Knost (22), Spencer Levin (23), Daniel Summerhays (24) and Casey Wittenberg (23). South Korean D.H. Lee (21) and Woon Joon "Boom Boom" Lee of Australia (22), who will not be in Panama and Mexico, are the youngest players on Tour this year. A pair of 22-year olds who enjoyed a great deal of success at the University of Georgia, Brendon Todd and Chris Kirk, will debut on the Nationwide Tour later in the season due to their position on the eligibility list.

• Mexicali, Mexico native and 2000 winner Esteban Toledo will be in the field for the 50th Mexico Open presented by Corona. The youngest of 11 children who grew up in a home with dirt floors, Esteban has earned $4.2 million in a professional career that began in 1986. He has made 530 starts, split pretty evenly between the PGA TOUR (281) and the Nationwide Tour (249). Toledo has a strong giving back spirit as demonstrated by his support of the "To Get A Grip Foundation" and the Esteban Toledo Pro-Am, which benefits the Foundation. Currently residing in Castle Rock, Colo., his dream is to build a church for impoverished children in the La Posalera section of Mexicali.

• The Nationwide Tour travels directly to Mexico for the back end of this year's two-event Latin American swing, Jan. 28 - Feb. 3. The Nationwide Tour and the Mexico Golf Federation have partnered to add the Mexico Open presented by Corona to the 2008 schedule. This is a special year for the Open as it celebrates its 50th playing. Past champions of the Mexico Open include Roberto De Vicenzo (1951, '53, '55), Billy Casper (1977), Lee Trevino (1973, '75) and Ben Crenshaw (1981). More recently, Mexicali, Mexico native Esteban Toledo won the title in 2000. The PGA TOUR will be in Mexico next month for the second playing of the Mayakoba Golf Classic at Riviera Maya.

• Three-time Arizona State All-American and 2001 U.S. Public Links champion Chez Reavie finished T5 over the weekend in the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic. It was the best finish among Class of 2007 Nationwide Tour graduates in the two events they have been eligible for this year. Another former ASU All-American, Matt Jones of Australia, is off to a solid start in his PGA TOUR career with T33 and T29 finishes, respectively, in the Sony Open in Hawaii and the Hope.

• PGA TOUR rookie Martin Laird, who left his homeland of Scotland to attend Colorado State University, made his first start of 2008 in the recent Sony Open in Hawaii. The following comments appeared in the Fort Collins' Coloradoan....."The thing I've come to realize is that this (PGA TOUR) is not a different game. It's a big step....but not as big as people think. The Nationwide Tour is very, very competitive, and you have to be at your best every week. The guys on the PGA TOUR just have more experience. I know a bunch of guys on the TOUR....It's not like I get out here and think, 'these guys are a lot better than me'. I know I can play with them.....To me, if you're not trying to win, you might as well not show up." Laird made the cut in his first two starts (T55/Sony and T56/Hope).

• Former Clemson star and Mt. Pleasant, S.C. resident D.J. Trahan became the 219th former Nationwide Tour player to win on the PGA TOUR when he captured the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic on Sunday. It was his second TOUR title. He won once on the Nationwide Tour in 2004 (Miccosukee Championship), his only full season.

• A familiar face returns to the Nationwide Tour full time in 2008. Joe Chemycz rejoins John Bush as a Media Official. Chemycz spent last season on the PGA TOUR. In 1998, he was hired by the TOUR and served as a media official on the Nationwide Tour his first eight years. Welcome back, Joe.