Neither you nor I knew much at all about this Nationwide Tour before the start of this week.
Now, thanks to a big ol' thick media guide, we can all share in the interesting trivia relating to the PGA Tour's second-tier collection of golfers.
Here are my top 10 random facts about the Nationwide Tour formerly the Buy.com Tour formerly the Nike Tour formerly the Hogan Tour:
1. It features tournaments called the Rex Hospital Open and the Nationwide Children's Hospital Invitational. The Tour sure loves those sick kids.
2. The commissioner of the PGA Tour, which runs the Nationwide Tour, is called Timothy W Finchem. And he looks about 50. Timothy!
3. They like to refer to it as the NATIONWIDE TOUR just in case WE CAN'T READ.
4. The leading player on the Nationwide Tour, sorry the NATIONWIDE TOUR, last year was a bloke called Matt Bettencourt. He earned US$447,863 which equates to about NZ$900,000. That's not bad. Tiger Woods wouldn't roll out of bed for a million Kiwi dollars, but I'd take it.
5. Two out of three current PGA Tour members played on the Nationwide Tour. And none of them want to go back if possible.
6. The Golf Channel will televise 17 Nationwide Tour events this year. A GOLF channel? Seriously? They make people pay for that?
7. In August 1991 "Long" John Daly became the first Nationwide Tour alumnus (look it up) to win a Major. In March 1998 John Daly became the
first Nationwide Tour alumnus to drink 13 crates of whiskey while balancing a Hooters girl in each hand.
8. John Daly used to have an appalling mullet-moustache combination.There's a photo on page 17.
9. Michael Sims is a Nationwide player from Georgia. His heroes are "the men and women overseas in the military who are protecting our freedom". U-S-A!! U-S-A!!
10. Hunter Haas's full name is - deep breath please - Hunter Jefferson Huck Finn Haas. I think his parents loved their great nation.
