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• Where: Champions Run
• TV: None
• Purse: $725,000; $130,500 to the winner
• Tickets: $10 daily grounds admission, $20 daily clubhouse access, sold at the gate. Books of eight grounds tickets are $40.
• Printable: Cox Classic Event Guide
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Tommy Gainey wants to soak up all of the Gamecock karma left around town after homestate South Carolina won the College World Series.
“I am feeling wonderful,'' said the only two-time winner this season on the Nationwide Tour, the one dubbed “Two Gloves” because he wears golf gloves on both hands.
“I didn't have the luxury of going (to the University of South Carolina), but I'm a Gamecock through and through. It's awesome to be here in Omaha ,where they finally broke through in baseball and won a national title.''
If this week's Cox Classic is where Gainey leaves the Nationwide Tour, it would bring his pro career full circle.
His tour debut was in Omaha in 2007, thanks to his victory in Golf Channel's “Big Break VII” reality series that carried an sponsor's exemption to the Cox Classic.
Three years and two mediocre seasons on the PGA Tour later, Gainey is a win away from an immediate promotion to the PGA Tour. And again, Omaha could be the jumping-off point. Never has a third win come earlier than the Cox Classic.
Of the nine to win three times since the plum was started in 1997, Chris Smith in 1997, Heath Slocum in 2001 and Jason Gore in 2005 got their third in Omaha. Only Slocum, of those three, has been able to stick on the PGA Tour without a return to the Nationwide.
“I have thought about it. I'd be lying if I said I didn't,'' Gainey said.
He has a 12:45 p.m. tee time in Thursday's first round, followed by a 7:35 a.m. start on Friday. The tour's leading money winner, Jamie Lovemark, has the reverse — 7:35 a.m. Thursday, 12:45 p.m. Friday.
At stake in the $725,000 tournament is the $130,500 first prize. A win by anyone in the top 50 would push his season winnings past $200,000, which is higher than last year's threshold for making the PGA Tour.
Only two of the top 50 are bypassing Omaha, former Ryder Cup team member Steve Pate and current PGA Tour member Fran Quinn.
Lovemark, Gainey, Chris Kirk, Kevin Chappell, Bobby Gates, Nos. 1 to 5 on the money list, appear locks for 2011.
Gainey said whenever his return to the big tour comes, he'll bring a much-improved short game.
“When I was on the PGA Tour in 2008 and 2009, I played God-awful and part of the reason was my short game was terrible,'' he said. “Making no putts, not hitting wedge shots in that 10-foot range where you can make some birdies.
“My short game has improved dramatically, and it shows in my two wins this season.''
Both wins have come since June 1, at the Prince George's County Open in College Park, Md., and two weeks ago at the new Chiquita Classic in Cincinnati.
Last week at the Nationwide Children's Hospital Invitational in the tour sponsor's hometown of Columbus, Ohio, he switched putters and still rallied in the fourth round to tie for 12th.
“I feel pretty happy about not making any putts and still finishing in the top 12,'' he said. “That's how it goes. I'm a streaky player, obviously with the past two months, and it wasn't meant to be.''
The only time he has been in Omaha, he tied for eighth — and played the easiest hole in history on the Nationwide Tour in 1 over par. On the drivable par-4 ninth, he went double bogey-birdie-bogey-birdie.
“I know it takes 20, 21 under here to win,'' Gainey said. “I like the course, I like the shape of my game right now, I like my caddie on my bag and I'm going to try to shoot as low as I can every day.''
Contact the writer:
444-1041, stu.pospisil@owh.com
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