Bates: Changing times

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Ben Bates has two Nationwide Tour victories.

Jul. 9, 2008

Editor's Note: If there is anyone who knows every step the Nationwide Tour has taken to get to its first million-dollar purse, it's Ben Bates. Bates played in the first Nationwide Tour event in 1990 and 368 starts later, he is still playing. Here are what Bates sees as the five biggest changes in the Nationwide Tour's history.

The five biggest changes

No.	Change	Comment
1.	Level of play	"The level of play has gotten better, better, better, better, better on this Tour. With the exception of about 10 players, you could interchange our players with those on the PGA TOUR and you'd have a hard time noticing the difference."
2.	More money	"This being the first $1 million purse is a landmark that needed to be reached. Hopefully, it will set a precedent for years to come."
3.	Media coverage	"The television coverage from GOLF CHANNEL has helped tremendously. Before, we were just kind of a blip on the radar. Now people are getting a lot of recognition and deservedly so. Before you'd see about five scores in the newspaper. Most of the media is covering everything."
4.	Course quality	"The quality of the courses is off the charts. It would be fair to say some of the courses we played in the early days were muny-ish. I think they're now the equivalent of the courses on the PGA TOUR. And as far as the set-up goes, look at our pin sheets. You'll see about 12 of them with three (strides from the green's edge) on them."
5.	Difficulty of cuts	"Cuts on this Tour are harder to make in my opinion. First of all, we're just taking 60 (10 less than the PGA TOUR). Out here, everybody is grinding to make the cut because every dollar counts. I'm not sure you see that on the PGA TOUR."