"I don’t want to look back knowing that I had the chance to do it and not doing it, and hating myself for it."

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Doug Ferguson tells us that Brett Waldman is giving up his looping duties to play on the Nationwide Tour next year after earning his way in through a miraculous Q-school run.

The hardest part of his journey was the final decision – give up financial security by working for Villegas, or grind it out on a tour with no guaranteed pay from smaller purses.

"It’s just a dream," Waldman said. "I don’t want to look back knowing that I had the chance to do it and not doing it, and hating myself for it. I would always look back and say, ‘What if?’ There’s a reason I got to where I am. I might as well chase the dream."

Waldman, who played college golf at Kansas State and Central Florida, had not played competitively since he was eliminated from the second stage of Q-school in 2002. He went to work as a caddie for his cousin, Tom Pernice Jr., for Ben Crane and eventually Villegas.

On a whim – and with prodding from his wife, Angel – he decided to try PGA Tour qualifying this year and was one of only nine players who made it through a pre-qualifier (four rounds) and the next two stages of four-round tournaments. While trying to advance, he continued to work for Villegas as the Tour Championship and tournaments in China and Australia.

Waldman might want to think about keeping the bag (if allowed) until late February since, as Sean Martin reports, the Nationwide tour is down to 26 events from 29 and doesn't start play domestically until mid-March.

"Had enough."

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I didn't mind much when Jerry Rice was playing in the Nationwide event he hosted, but now he's just taking up a spot belonging to someone who actually belongs in the field.

Rice shot a 92, the highest score ever since this Nationwide Tour event began in South Carolina's Upstate in 1992.

Rice talked before the tournament of buying Cristal for everyone if he'd reached his goal and made the cut. He saw those hopes doused early when he couldn't avoid the water at The Carolina Country Club.

He put three shots into the water on the par-4 second hole for a 10. Things never improved from there. His 20-over finish was two shots worse than the 90 put up by Shawn McCaughley in 2006 at The Cliffs Valley Course.

Sounds like someone else we know...

Rice signed autographs for about 15 minutes after finishing No. 18. He then bypassed several TV cameras and media waiting to discuss his round.

"I don't want to talk about golf right now," Rice said before getting in his car. "Had enough."

Sean Martin's Rice-update tweets were quite enjoyable and I'm sure he'll be chiming in more today as Rice tries to break 100.

Not All Bad News For Golf!

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Keith Kelly in the New York Post looks at Conde Nast's advertising slide but notes:

Only one magazine in its stable is showing a rise over a year ago: Golf World, a small circulation weekly, that is up 16.5 percent through the Feb. 23 issue.

And Sean Martin reports that despite executive upheaval and huge losses at Nationwide, the insurance giant is continuing its support of the PGA Tour’s developmental circuit:

John Aman, Nationwide’s associate vice president of strategic sponsorships, said he does not expect any “wholesale changes” to the company’s marketing approach.

“We remain committed to the Nationwide Tour, as well as our other sponsorships,” Aman told Golfweek. “That’s a question we’re getting asked across the board, and it’s part of what we think we need to do to be in the marketplace in a competitive insurance climate.”

A Shame For The Nationwide Tour..

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Phil Kosin reports on and laments the loss of one of the premier stops on the Nationwide Tour. He explains how it had become such a nice annual gathering.

"Getting to $1 million is a psychological threshold that makes an important impact"

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With the Nationwide Tour about to hold its first $1 million purse event, Brett Avery reviews how far it has come.

But the guts of the thing, the players, have changed appreciably. In early years PGA Tour players, obsessed with their status, equated demotion to a Siberian gulag. In a classic chicken-and-egg equation, the more PGA Tour players competed on the Hogan and Nike, the more robust those competitions—and the stronger the abilities of those reaching the big tour. Stewart Cink, one of the first to become a household name, was Nike player of the year in 1996 with three wins. By 1997 he was hoisting the Greater Hartford Open title on the PGA Tour, a victory he duplicated last month at TPC River Highlands.

The Nationwide test is far different now. The season begins with four foreign events, requiring 17,000-plus air miles, or about 30 percent more miles than the 1990 players drove for the entire year. Now few weeks allow driving so players hopscotch on flights. Success does not come cheap; even misers encounter $70,000 in expenses while equipment, apparel and visor contracts pay a fraction of the big tour.

Reid Edstrom, who competed on several mini-tours for a decade before reaching the Nationwide Tour this season, realizes the finances pale compared to the PGA Tour. He won a spot in Monday qualifying for the AT&T Classic outside of Atlanta, made the cut, "finished dead last and earned [almost] $10,500." An equivalent payout in a Nationwide-minimum purse of $500,000 is worth $1,200.