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July 2, 2007
by Jack Bogaczyk
Daily Mail Sports Editor
WHEN the West Virginia Open crowns its 74th champion today at Lakeview Resort, the victor will be presented an exemption
into the state's richest sports event.
However, when the Open champ gets to the fourth annual National Mining Association Pete Dye Classic in late August, he
not only will be in a different golf world, but also on a Harrison County reclaimed coal-mine course that will play strategically
different.
For the $600,000 Nationwide Tour stop, the Dye Golf Club will remain par 72 over 7,308 yards, but the nines are being flip-flopped.
It's a move the PGA and Nationwide tours, The Golf Channel (for telecast logistical reasons) and even designer Dye endorsed.
"I think it's going to provide a lot of drama," Dye Classic Director Tim McNeely said Thursday.
Assistant tournament director Ashley Brian Childs explained that "No. 7 becomes 16, a (196-yard) short par 3. The 17 for
the tournament is a short part 5 (504 yards), and the finishing hole is a long 4 (497 yards)."
The major change for the Aug. 23-26 Dye Classic field will be the adjustment from 17 to 18, which are only 7 yards different
in length, but one is a par 5 and the other a 4. The short par 5 could provide ample birdie opportunities down the stretch,
before a bogey-inviting, lengthy finish.
"The idea was to get more movement on the scoreboard on the finishing holes, make it tougher," Childs said. "We think it's
going to make a big difference."
McNeely said the flip-flop of nines "also will make for a little more intimate atmosphere for the fans on 18."
It likely won't be the scorecard reversal that will offer the state Open champ the most challenge. It will be teeing it
up in a talented 156-player field.
The Dye landed a better field in 2006 than in the previous two years, after a move from early July to late August on the
Nationwide schedule. More players are jockeying for position as the season deepens.
This year, the PGA Tour has increased the number of Tour cards available to the Nationwide top 25 money winners, up from
22. That's not the only indication of the "second" Tour's quality and increased respect, however.
You might say the proof is in the putting.
When Boo Weekley -- last year's Dye runner-up in a playoff -- won the Verizon Heritage at Hilton Head Island, S.C., in
mid-April, he became the 202nd one-time Nationwide Tour player to win on the PGA Tour.
That followed by one week a stunning Masters triumph by Zach Johnson, the 2003 Nationwide Player of the Year. Of the 63
players who made the cut in the treacherous U.S. Open at Oakmont, 30 have played full-time on the Nationwide Tour at some
point.
Four grads from the 2006 Nationwide Tour (Weekley, Ken Duke, Jeff Quinney and Brandt Snedeker) already have reached the
$1 million mark in PGA Tour winnings this season.
It's a measure of the quality play on the Nationwide Tour that its recent grads rank in the PGA Tour's FedEx Cup points
ahead of or with Sergio Garcia and David Toms.
The 2007 Nationwide Tour has its own stars as it reached the halfway point of a 32-event schedule this week at the Peek
Peek Classic in the southwestern corner of New York State.
For example, No. 2 money winner Nicholas Thompson, a Walker Cupper, was in Southern Pines, N.C., earlier this week helping
his sister, Alexis, prepare for an historic start -- she's age 12 -- in the U.S. Women's Open.
Chris Riley, who won two weeks ago in Rochester, N.Y., is playing the big Tour's Buick Open this week thanks to a sponsor's
exemption, and has an offer from his buddy, Tiger Woods, to skip next week's Nationwide stop in suburban Cleveland for a berth
in Tiger's new AT&T National at Congressional.
It's tough to win on the Nationwide Tour. Consider that since the second tour began in 1990 (as the Ben Hogan Tour), no
player has defended a tournament title. Sure, some of the reason for that is that many winners get their PGA Tour cards and
don't return to an event, but there have been plenty of chances in 17 1/2 years where it could have happened.
Leading money winner Nick Flanagan ($5,425 ahead of Thompson) is the only two-time victor on Tour this season -- and a
third will get him one of those "battlefield" promotions to the Tiger Tour.
However, Flanagan ($249,417) will miss his third straight tournament this week, and is home in Australia after minor hernia
surgery. He's scheduled back in two weeks, trying to stay atop a money list that already has 20 players with more than $100,000.
Four of the 15 events have been decided in playoffs this season, as the Pete Dye was last August, when Jason Enloe's 8-foot
par putt on the first playoff hole topped Weekley for the $108,000 winner's check.
You know what Weekley has done. As for Enloe, he's scuffling as he was before his Dye title. Enloe is 97th on the Nationwide
money list, with $26,172. He has only one top 25 finish this season (tie for 11th at Rochester).
His only career top 10 (he's playing his 100th Nationwide event this week) was the Dye title.
There's no insurance of success on the Nationwide Tour. It's tough, no matter in what order the nines are played.
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