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By Dave Lagarde
PGATOUR.com Correspondent

It's just a number, six figures of cash that can be very cold if you fail to accumulate enough over the course of a Nationwide Tour season.

Trouble is the number is a moving target, one with weekly shifts, sometimes slight, other times seismic, throughout the Nationwide Tour season. That makes it as difficult to nail down as a hyperactive two-year-old; as hard to figure out as Brittany Spears' social life, as elusive as Tiger Woods during an off week.

Jess Daley tries not to stress over the money game. (WireImage)

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Eventually, it will be hard and fast, forever solidified a nanosecond after the final putt falls at the Nationwide Tour Championship at Barona Creek outside of San Diego on Nov. 4. But that does not stop just about every card-carrying member of the Tour from idly dwelling on exactly what the elusive target will be from time to time. Human nature dictates it is inevitable because a year in a player's professional life is hanging, often times very delicately, in the balance.

For those who don't know, this number is the amount of official earnings needed to squeeze into "The 25'' on the final money list. Players who accomplish the financial feat secure PGA TOUR playing privileges in 2008.

That's why the number creates worry and woe as well as fear and loathing among inexperienced players chasing it for the first time or veterans who have never used the Nationwide Tour as their avenue to The Big Show. They're the ones who can't help but steal glances at the money list when it is updated after the conclusion of another Nationwide Tour event. That sets off a chain reaction of addition and subtraction on the blackboard in their minds.

So what will it take to be inside "The 25'' at season's end?

Anyone want to just take a guess?

"Somewhere around $180,000,'' said Tim O'Neal, who has three-plus seasons of Nationwide Tour experience.

Jess Daley, another veteran of this annual cash battle, is more pragmatic. He sees no point of stressing.

"You know at the start of the season, $200,000 gets you a PGA TOUR card and $100,000 gets you status out here (on the Nationwide Tour),'' he said.

But that simple explanation does not prevent people from doing the math.

"I'll take $195,000,'' said Scott Sterling, who is in 12th position with $186,477 heading into this week's National Mining Association Pete Dye Classic. "I won't feel safe until I get there.''

Sterling's caution is understandable. He is 35, a pro who has beaten about in golf's hinterlands since 1995 while playing in exactly one PGA Tour event. He knows his window of opportunity to compete on golf's biggest stage may never open any wider. So he is anxious to quell his career-long itch with a Nationwide Tour scratch.

That also means Sterling is one of those players who watches the weekly changes on the money list with uncommon intensity while constantly doing the math. And he admits to being bamboozled from time to time by what can happen.

"I made $4,600 one week and lost a couple of places,'' he said. "A while back, I missed two cuts and didn't lose ground. I just don't know.''

Here's what we do know with eight full-field events remaining in the stretch run to the 60-invite Nationwide Tour Championship.

Eight players are locks. They are money leader Roland Thatcher, Nick Flanagan, Jason Day, Justin Bolli, Paul Claxton, Nicholas Thompson, Omar Uresti and Patrick Sheehan. Each has vaulted the golden $200,000 hurdle.

Don't bet against the next seven -- John Riegger, Chez Reavie, Martin Laird, Sterling, Chad Collins, Skip Kendall and Brad Elder. They are positioned at No. 9 through 15 on the money list, and each player has won at least $180,000, a number that should be safe considering the Nationwide Tour bumped its graduates from 20 to 25 this season and how well the players above them have been playing.

What's more, Flanagan, who earned a performance promotion to the PGA TOUR with his third victory of the 2007 at the Xerox Classic on Sunday, likely has played his last Nationwide Tour event. Unless he is looking to stay competitively sharp in the next month while the FedEx Cup playoffs play out.

Here's one more thing working for the rank-and-file. Jay Williamson, 20th this week, parlayed a sponsor's exemption in The Travelers Championship into conditional PGA TOUR membership with spectacular play. He'll have full status in 2008.

Take Flanagan and Williamson out of the mix and "The 25'' likely will become "The 27'' for all intents and purposes when dusk settles on the 2007 Nationwide Tour season. But there are no guarantees and enough time remaining for a player to get hot and take the guessing and anxiety out of his personal equation.

That would be just fine with Sterling, who just became a father for the second time six weeks ago.

"Just give me 20th ,and I'll go home and babysit the rest of the year,'' he said.