Prodigal Sons

Filed in archive Golf News on February 12, 2007

John Mallinger: Nationwide Grad

"All the people, they'd step back/ When a young man walked by": The Who

Phil Mickelson certainly made Pebble Beach look like a municipal course on Sunday. His fans are sure glad he's back, slimmed down and looking about 20 pounds lighter than last season.

And good on him.

But once again, it was the Nationwide Tour that deserves to take a bow. Or perhaps the PGA Tour for having the great good sense to establish a development circuit back in 1990.

It was just a short 17 years ago that the Hogan Tour cranked up, becoming a homing beacon for players from the disparate mini tours scattered around the United States.

When past PGA commissioner Deane Beman launched the Hogan Tour in 1990, he was following a path that had already proven successful in many other sports.

Major League Baseball had its farm teams and the National Football League had the college system.

The National Hockey League had the junior leagues like the OHA (now OHL), Western Canada Junior Hockey League, the Quebec Minor Hockey League and so on.

Even motor racing had been utilizing development series for years, especially overseas.

But golf was the first sport of individuals to establish something like this. Before the Hogan Tour and the mini tours, golfers with talent had to hunt for decent tournaments to enter, hoping to be successful enough to try and qualify for a PGA event.

They called them the Monday morning rabbits. And it was a terrible way to make a living.

On Sunday, two recent Nationwide grads made the top ten at the Pebble Beach AT&T Pro Am: John Mallinger who was on page one of the leaderboard right from the get-go and Ryan Armour.

This is the latest PGA tournament this season in which Nationwide graduates have made headlines.

But that's no surprise. Ernie Els, David Duval, David Toms, John Daly, Jim Furyk and Tom Lehman are all alumni.

And there's no reason to think it will stop.

When the Hogan Tour became the Nike Tour and the Nike became the Buy.Com and then the Nationwide Tour, three sponsor changes didn't reflect a tour that was struggling; it reflected a tour that was so strong it could attract corporations like Nike and Nationwide to pony up, even though there were no big stars to attract large crowds.

Beman probably wasn't alone in devising the concept of a player development circuit. Ideas like that aren't borne in a vacuum.

But he knew it was needed to keep the game from stagnating.

It was absolutely essential that a formal, organized and carefully monitored "junior" tour be established to give the ever increasing number of talented college players a taste of tournament play and pressure in order to prepare them for the Big Show, the PGA Tour.

They don't take any prisoners on the PGA Tour, so you have to be battle hardened before you arrive.

That seems to be working. And we are witnessing another of golf's "changing of the guard" as a result.

No one is going to touch Tiger for awhile. But when he's caught, it's going to be by a player who honed his talent on the Nationwide Tour.