Trio of Nationwide grads has immediate impact

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Chez Reavie was the lone Nationwide Tour graduate to earn a win in 2008, capturing the RBC Canadian Open.

What will you remember about the '08 season? That was the simple question we asked PGATOUR.COM staffers and freelance contributors, who responded with a series of short essays that we will post during November (click here for the archive link).

When Chez Reavie rolled in his final putt for a birdie on the 18th hole at Glen Abbey, it was a statement for the 2007 graduates of the Nationwide Tour.

Reavie, 26, became the first winner of a PGA TOUR event in 2008 from last year's 25 Nationwide Tour graduates when he captured the RBC Canadian Open. But that only tells part of the graduating class' story.

An impressive 11 players from that class qualified for the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup and that doesn't include Jay Williamson or Brad Adamonis, both of whom also qualified for the Playoffs after spending part of their year on the Nationwide Tour.

Three of those players -- Reavie, Nicholas Thompson, and Martin Laird -- all made it to the third round of the Playoffs at the BMW Championship.

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Of those three, it's difficult to determine who had the most impressive season, but their impact was clearly a sign of the continued growth and success of the Nationwide Tour.

Reavie is the lone player to record a victory this season, but he had just one other top 10, a a tie for fifth at the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic. On the flip side, he showed remarkable consistency by making 20 of 28 cuts. In two of his three Playoff events, he shot par or better in six of eight rounds. Only a missed cut at the Deutsche Bank Championship prevented him from playing in THE TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola.

Nicholas Thompson had a similarly successful year, finishing tied for second at the Ginn sur Mer Classic, tied for fourth at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans and the EDS Byron Nelson Classic and tied for fifth at the RBC Canadian Open. For the season, he had six top 10s, 11 top 25s and 21 cuts made in 36 events and was the leading money winner among his class.

Laird, meanwhile, was a non-factor until the John Deere Classic. That's where he began to find his game. After missing eight of his previous 11 cuts, Laird tied for 29th at the John Deere Classic and missed just one cut the rest of the year. Along the way he had back-to-back tie for fourth-place finishes at the Legends Reno-Tahoe Open and Wyndham Championship before qualifying for the Playoffs.

Like Reavie and Thompson, Laird played in three of the four Playoff events before his run came to an end. Judging by all three's impact, however, this won't be the last we'll see of them.

Marc Turnesa, also a 2007 graduate, won the Justin Timberlake Shriners Hospital for Children Open during the Fall Series to put the finishing touch on a great season for last year's graduating class.

Jordan Crampton, an administrative assistant for PGATOUR.com, just wishes he was good enough to play on the Nationwide Tour instead of merely write about it.