Which tour is actually harder to succeed at during the course of a complete year? I wonder about that because at first thought you would automatically say the PGA Tour is harder because the total talent level is superior but at closer look it really is not conclusive.
For example, let’s take Ken Duke. Right now middle of May 2012 Duke has played two more career tournaments on the PGA Tour than the Nationwide Tour—152-150. He has more cuts made on the PGA tour than the nationwide. That got my attention so I looked up the statistics for over 25 players and almost to a man the cuts made on the PGA Tour have a similar percentage of cuts made on the nationwide tour. It surprised me—I thought there would be more cuts made on the Nationwide Tour over the PGA Tour but that was not the case. One constant we must mention right now is that the nationwide tour takes only 60 plus ties for the cut and the PGA Tour takes 70 and ties for its cuts so that amounts to 10 additional cuts made for the total field.
The reasons could be many but I will boil the pot down to one— the PGA Tour knows what they are doing. The way players qualify for the PGA Tour and for play on the Nationwide Tour is on par (no pun intended) with what it should be. It shows me if you are ready to compete on the national tour the qualifying methods to reach that tour are set up correctly and if you are quality for the nationwide tour that is where you belong.
Some players probably think they belong on the PGA Tour but if you are on the Nationwide Tour that is where you belong right now in time. Work hard and you can either progress to the big tour or stay where you are. Talent is one element for success. It’s everything else that ultimately tells the story and kudos to the PGA Tour for getting it right. Let’s take the case of Matt Kuchar—he won a tournament on the PGA Tour in 2002 by 2005 he was “in the minors” and had to regain confidence and revamp his swing etc., etc. and voila he is a megastar on the big tour in 2012. He was where he was supposed to be exactly when he was! Sometimes the Tour gets it right and in this case they indeed do.