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If you have not heard of the Nationwide Tour you are likely not a golf fanatic. But if you have heard of that tour, you are still likely not to have heard of some of the even lesser known mini-tours such as the Canadian, the Gateway and even the Northern Texas PGA.

In relative obscurity, much like baseball's minor leagues, there are numerous golf minor leagues. But one, the Nationwide Tour, has become the standard place to serve as a training ground for the next generation of PGA Tour professionals. It is a composite group of events, offering a 31-tournament season, that is a step above the many other lesser known tours that offer cash for those golfers trying to make a living off the game they love.

And like the PGA Tour, the Nationwide holds a year end event that features the top money winners during the past year, albeit of its own scale. Invitations go out to the top sixty money winners on the season long Tour - at stake is a spot at year's end in the top twenty-two on the list. Make the top twenty-two and you graduate to the big time, earning a card to play on the PGA Tour and a chance to play against the likes of Woods and Mickelson for gasp, millions in prize money.

In almost legendary fashion, a young man by the name of Craig Kanada put together a final hole finish that vaulted him to the Nationwide Tour Championship as well as onto the PGA Tour for 2007. In one of the most spectacular of finishes in golf history, Kanada chipped in on the final two holes on Sunday, the 71st, from about 25 feet from a greenside bunker, then again on the 18th and 72nd, from about 50 feet to earn the victory.

He salvaged par on 17 with his shot, then had the miraculous birdie on 18 that gave him a final round 66 and a one shot victory over former tour player Matt Kuchar and another young Australian with game, Andrew Buckle. Adding to the excitement for the mini-tour veteran, Kuchar missed a seven footer for birdie on 18 that would have forced extra holes. Kanada also got a major assist from Kuchar on the 17th when he three-putted for bogey.

For Kanada, the $135,000 prize pushed him from 32nd (no card) to 11th on the money list and automatic berth for the 2007 season. With the event in his own back yard, taking the event before the hometown folks made the victory all the more sweet for Kanada.

Rounding out the graduates to the PGA Tour were a number of foreigners as well as a number of players who had previous stops on the PGA Tour. Ken Duke emerged as the top earner overall for the year, bringing him a Tour card that he lost after the 2004 season. Others in the top ten included four players moving onto the big tour for the first time, Johnson Wagner, Cliff Kresge, Jeff Quinney, and Brandy Snedeker, and another five returning to the higher echelon after having lost their cards for poor performances, Craig Bowden, Tripp Isenhour, Boo Weekley, Jason Duffner and Kuchar. Among the foreigners qualifying for the PGA were Buckle from Brisbane, Australia, Jim Rutledge - Victoria, British Columbia, Gavin Coles - Bathurst, Australia (previously on tour in 2005), Jarrod Lyle, Shepparton, Australia, Michael Sim, Aberdeen, Scotland, and Paul Sheehan, yet another Australian.

Those who failed to emerge from the Nationwide Tour will have one other chance this fall to make it through the brutal Q-School format.