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11/28/2011 - Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - If this year on the PGA Tour showed anything, it's that the Nationwide Tour should be looked at seriously for golfers of the future.
After a record number of rookies won on the big tour and Keegan Bradley won the PGA Championship, one can look at this year's Nationwide Tour finish and possibly see among it a future major champion. And not in the next five years -- more like 2012.
It was written after last year that the Nationwide Tour season turned out to be a dud because there was no in-season promotion. Once again, several players had a golden opportunity to earn win No. 3 of the year, but once again, nobody stepped up to the plate.
No matter, we've now seen what some of these players can do when given an opportunity on the biggest stage. And besides, two wins gets you promoted in the long run anyway.
If anyone considered the Nationwide Tour a place where borderline prospects get sent to the big stage, it's time to re-think your position. There will be winners on the 2012 PGA Tour from the group of 25 promoted. It's anyone's guess just who that will be.
The 2011 Nationwide Tour season was another good one with a few dominant players, some familiar names and some new ones. In the end, it was a new face that came out just a tad better than the rest of them.
PLAYER OF THE YEAR - J.J. Killeen
The winner of this year's money title, Killeen came out of nowhere to capture the Utah Championship and Cox Classic in back-to-back weeks in late July-early August. It had many people thinking he would be the one to earn the elusive promotion to the PGA Tour, but it didn't happen until the end of the season.
He had been knocking on the door with a pair of top-five finishes earlier in the year, but finally broke through in July for his first career win. Now, he'll get a chance to do the same thing on the PGA Tour for the first time.
Killeen finished rather slow, with two cuts missed in his last four events, but it doesn't overshadow his tour-leading six top-five finishes and $12,000 lead over Ted Potter, Jr. for the money title.
Missing the cut: Potter, Mathew Goggin and Jason Kokrak.
TOURNAMENT OF THE YEAR - Children's Hospital Invitational
Coming into the year, only one amateur had won in Nationwide Tour history. Early in 2011, Russell Henley made it two, and the Children's Hospital Invitational proved to be a guarantee for a third.
Whereas Henley fought off numerous professionals, this event had two amateurs battling for the title all week, with nobody else in contention by the end. John Peterson held the lead for each of the first three rounds, and Harris English came charging at the end to battle for the title.
Peterson led English by one at the start of the final round, and the two made up the final pairing of the tournament. Peterson found himself three strokes clear after a two-shot swing at the first hole.
Just when it looked as if Peterson, the NCAA Individual Champion, would cruise to the title, English birdied a pair of holes to cut the gap to one once again. English finally drew even with a birdie at the 12th, and there were six holes left to figure out which guy was going to take the crown.
English went ahead for the first time when Peterson bogeyed the 14th, but Peterson came back with a birdie at the 15th, and English bogeyed the hole to create a two-shot swing that changed the lead.
Heading into the final hole, Peterson held a one-stroke advantage, but it simply wasn't meant to be for the LSU Tiger. His tee shot off the final hole landed in a divot in the rough, and he ended up missing a 15-footer for par. When English drained a 10-foot birdie putt on the same hole, it was the Georgia Bulldog, English, who took the crown in exciting fashion.
In the end, the biggest beneficiary may have been Kyle Reifers, who got to take home first-place money after finishing in a tie for second. Reifers, who collected the biggest check because the two amateurs maintained their status, ended up fifth on the money list and earned a promotion to the PGA Tour.
English and Peterson, meanwhile, did not.
SHOT OF THE YEAR - The shot of the year turned out to be a miss, unfortunately.
Former Midshipman Billy Hurley III needed a couple balls to bounce his way in the Nationwide Tour Championship to earn his PGA Tour card for 2012. After five years post-graduation in the Navy, he had made it this far, but was about to barely miss the top 25.
David Lingmerth began the final event 50th on the money list, but had a five- foot birdie putt on the last hole to make it into the top 25. Instead, he missed it and finished 27th.
Unfortunate, but golf is a zero-sum game, meaning someone benefited from the miss.
That someone was Hurley.
He didn't have any wins this year, but Hurley got into the top 25 by about $5,000 over James Nitties. Hurley walked off the course in 26th, but finished in 25th to get the biggest prize of his life. Nitties and Lingmerth can both get onto the PGA Tour next year as they made it to the Final Stage of Q School.
GOOD YEAR
Potter: One of four players with two wins, Potter finished second on the money list, $12,000 behind Killeen despite seven fewer events. If he had had a better schedule, maybe he would have been a lock for an in-season promotion.
English: He finished 65th on the money list, just missing the field for the Nationwide Tour Championship. Had he foregone his amateur status when he posted his victory, he would not only have easily made that field, but would likely be ticketed for the PGA Tour as well (and likely would have knocked Hurley out). English could get that elusive tour card as he reached the finals of PGA Tour Q School.
BAD YEAR
John Smoltz: He got an invitation to play in the South Georgia Classic, and the future Hall of Fame pitcher, who is a scratch golfer, was expected to prove his worth. While he wasn't expected to win, he wasn't expected to finish nine strokes worse than anybody else. At 27-over-par through two rounds, Smoltz was never in the hunt to make the cut.
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My fellow Americans, as tempting as it may be to don the coat and HD-ready tie in order to deliver this State of the Game address before the cameras, I know better. As Brad Paisley sings on his latest album, "I'm so much cooler online."
The ideas for this annual essay to kick off the MySportsbook.com college football betting preview flowed like frat-house beer, which is to say they were cheap and spilled all over the floor. The 2007 season will be better than 2007, if only because there will be more of it. A year ago, the NCAA Football Rules Committee made two rule changes in the interest of speeding up the game. These changes went over like Kobe burgers at a vegan banquet.
To its credit, the rules committee rectified its mistakes. This season the clock once again will start when a kickoff is received, rather than when it is kicked, and the clock will not start so quickly on a change of possession.
However, kickoffs have been moved back five yards, to the 30, which will force more returns. (Thus forcing the clock to run. Clever, huh?) Special teams might decide a lot of games, because coaching strategy will come straight out of another new Paisley lyric (almost), I'd like to check you for kicks.
Paisley sings with a twang, which is why he's appropriate for this college football season. The sun coming up over the 2007 college football betting lines season rises from the south. It's a Southern football world. As the Southeastern Conference begins its 75th year, the power shift is noticeable.
Eight-figure budgets, glamorous settings -- and that's just for the head coaches. The SEC has four coaches who have won national championships -- the greatest aggregation of coaching know-how since Eddie Robinson dined alone.
Steve Spurrier, Phil Fulmer, Nick Saban and Urban Meyer have given lie to the idea that a conference championship game is too daunting a hurdle on the road to No. 1. In six of the past 10 seasons, the national champions played and won a conference championship game -- three of the six (Tennessee, 1998; LSU, 2003; Florida, 2007) from the SEC.
There will be more of the same this season, if the preseason prognostications are correct. Six SEC teams are in the preseason coaches' poll, more than from any other conference. Only one conference has talent so deep that a team with 15 returning starters, including the best quarterback in the league, from an eight-win season is considered an afterthought. That may speak more to Kentucky's losing legacy than to the wisdom of the predictions, but there you have it. And seriously, keep an eye on Wildcats QB Andre' Woodson.
The reach of the South extends all the way to No. 1. Take a look at the team that is a consensus pick to win the national championship. The quarterback is from Shreveport. The best wide receiver is from Nashville. The top recruit is from New Orleans.
So what's the campus doing in Los Angeles? Hey, it is the University of Southern California.
USC lost two Pacific-10 Conference games a year ago, the first time that had happened in five seasons, and university officials withstood the urge to form blue-ribbon panels to unearth the cause of such a disaster. Instead, the Trojans gathered themselves and routed Michigan, 32-18, in the Rose Bowl.
USC's losses at Oregon State and at UCLA last year should have given pause to those who question the Pac-10's football prowess (such as, without naming names, L.M. from Baton Rouge). The league only got deeper this season; Dennis Erickson is taking over an Arizona State team that never quite got out of its own way under his predecessor, Dirk Koetter.
Erickson will resume his quest to become the first coach to win a national championship at two schools. Both he and Spurrier, now in his third season at South Carolina, returned to college football at schools with lower profiles than where they won their titles.
That isn't the case for the third coach looking for the national championship double. You may have missed this, but NASA reported the astronauts on the space shuttle last spring made contact with what can only be described as beings from another galaxy.
The leader of the aliens said, "We come in peace," followed by, "So how do you think Nick Saban will do at Alabama?"
The public is reacting to the new Crimson Tide coach as if he is the Barry Bonds of college football -- beloved at home for what his fans believe he is going to do, hated on the road for his intimidating attitude and for what his detractors believe he did (bend NCAA recruiting rules). I made this comparison from the dais at a charity dinner in Mobile, Ala., last month, and the chill that washed over me didn't come from the air conditioning.
Saban will attempt to prove that he can remake in Tuscaloosa what he built in Baton Rouge, much like another member of the national championship fraternity. Bobby Bowden is attempting to remake at Florida State what he built at, um, Florida State. Bowden rebuilt his offensive staff, bringing in four new coaches led by Saban's former offensive coordinator, Jimbo Fisher, to jump-start an offense that has been dead for a couple of years.
The Atlantic Coast Conference is expected to show new signs of life, too. That is said with no disrespect toward last season's champion, Wake Forest, which provided one of the best story lines of 2007. The Demon Deacons begin this season in their customary position, overshadowed by the Virginia Techs, Miamis and Florida States.
It's not that Wake will find it difficult to duplicate its success in 2007 as much as the feeling that success engendered. Surprising success is the narcotic of sport. It never feels quite so euphoric the next time. Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese has figured this out. He refers to 2007, when a league looked down upon by fans and foes alike took three undefeated teams into November, as "Cinderella."
The fairy tale may be over, but the Big East has four genuine Heisman Trophy candidates in Louisville quarterback Brian Brohm, West Virginia tailback Steve Slaton and quarterback Pat White, and Rutgers tailback Ray Rice. Rutgers, as did Wake Forest and, of course, Boise State, proved last season that the have-nots in college football occasionally have quite a lot.
The Broncos' rousing 43-42 overtime victory over Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl has raised the profile of all schools in conferences that don't get automatic BCS bids. This season, TCU and Hawaii are the preseason favorites to burst through the BCS doors and earn an at-large bid. The Warriors return 14 starters from an 11-3 team, including quarterback Colt Brennan.
Brennan not only broke the single-season record with 58 touchdown passes in 2007, but he also led Division I-A in passing efficiency (186.0). The senior is expected to contend for the Heisman Trophy, and neither his success nor the rise of his team should come as any surprise in the 2007 season.
After all, Hawaii is the southernmost team in the country.
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