Matthew Goggin
Mathew Goggin's win at the Panama CLARO Championship was the 45th Nationwide Tour title by an Australian and is one of twenty-five different Aussies that have contributed to the total victories.
Canada is next in wins by players from outside the U.S. with 18.
The 36-year-old Goggin spent the past five years and nine of the last 11 on the PGA TOUR. It was his first Nationwide Tour victory since he won twice in 1999 -- the third-longest span between wins in Tour history at 11 years, 6 month and 19 days. Goggin's Aussie mate Alistair Presnell pushed into the lead on the back nine, only to post bogies on 15, 16 and 17. He finished T2 with American Darron Stiles. Golf fans will remember Goggin contended for the 2009 British Open title (T5), having been paired with Tom Watson in the last group on the last day.
For the eighth consecutive week this year, a Nationwide Tour alumnus has won on the PGA TOUR. Johnson Wagner's victory in the Mayakoba Golf Classic at Riviera Maya-Cancun was the 296th alumni win since the Tour's inception in 1990. Wagner also won the Shell Houston Open in 2008. He is a 2006 graduate of the Nationwide Tour. Alumni have now won events each of the last nine weeks on TOUR, dating back to Robert Garrigus' win in the season-ending tournament at Disney in October.
Erik Compton went from being the third to last player to get in the Panama CLARO Championship to making a run for his first Nationwide Tour title. The former Univ. of Georgia All-American was a co-leader after the first two rounds, sole leader after the third and still atop the leader board through 13 holes in the Sunday's finale. Goggin grabbed the lead with timely birdies on Nos. 14 and 16. Compton slipped over the final five holes making bogies on 14 and 15 and a double-bogey on the 18th to finish T4.
Despite not making any birdies on Sunday, Compton led the field with 17 for the week. The two-time heart transplant recipient is on a nice two-week run. After Monday-qualifying for the PGA TOUR's Northern Trust Open and finishing T25, he caught a red-eye flight home to Miami, only to find out late last Monday morning a spot had opened up for him in the Panama field. Compton remained home on Tuesday to help celebrate his daughter's birthday, then flew south on Wednesday.
Without a practice round, the 31-year-old birdied the first five holes and six of his first seven to shot 29 on Thursday. Compton's top-25 finish secured him a spot in this week's Pacific Rubiales Bogotá Open.
In a unique move, 25-year-old Mark Anderson elected to take a pass on last fall's PGA TOUR Qualifying School after he finished 60th on the Nationwide Tour money list. "I've tried to become a little bit more mature and think about things in a longer-term view than what I'm going to do next week or next year," Anderson told Golfweek. "I'm trying to look four or five years down the road." The former Univ. of South Carolina All-American got out of the gates nicely in 2010 with three top-8 finishes in his first seven starts only to fade, missing seven cuts in the second half of the year. Anderson is looking to do a better job of pacing himself and handling the week-to-week process that is professional golf.
His 2011 season got off to a good start in Panama with a T13 finish.
Colombia native and University of Florida [UF] senior Andres Echavarria has received an invitation to play in the Pacific Rubiales Bogotá Open and will forego joining his UF teammates at the John Hayt Collegiate Invitational (February 27th -March 1st) at Sawgrass Country Club in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida to return home and compete against the talent on the PGA TOUR's "official proving ground."
Pacific Rubiales Bogotá Open ambassador Camilo Villegas is a former UF star golfer and a 2004 UF business graduate who played his way onto the PGA TOUR via the Nationwide Tour one year after graduation.
Echavarria is having a fine senior season. Two weeks ago, he won the Gator Invitational hosted by UF in Gainesville, Fla. He is joined in the field by fellow Colombians and Florida Gators Camilo Beneditti and Manuel Villegas. Playing his way into the Bogotá field was another young Colombian who achieved success on the college ranks in the U.S. Diego Velasquez, a first-team All-American at Oregon State University last year, turned a sponsor exemption at the Panama CLARO Championship into a T16 finish. Players who are otherwise not exempt, receive a spot in the next week's field if they finish T25 or better in the previous event. Velasquez' start in Panama was his first as a professional in a TOUR-sanctioned event.
Also playing on a sponsor's exemption in Panama, Sam Saunders enjoyed his best finish in a PGA TOUR-sanctioned event, a T10. His third-round 63 was his TOUR low, by three shots. Two weeks ago, the grandson of Arnold Palmer finished T15 at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am on the PGA TOUR. Saunders earned a spot in this week's Bogotá field as a result of his top-25 finish in Panama.
Last year's leading player on the Nationwide Tour Jamie Lovemark is set to return to the PGA TOUR this week at The Honda Classic. The former Univ. of Southern California star and TOUR rookie was forced to withdraw after the first round of the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am on Feb. 10th, citing disc concerns in his back.
Defending Pacific Rubiales Bogotá Open champion Steve Pate will be making his 92nd Nationwide Tour start this week and on May 26th, the former UCLA All-American turns 50 and will turn his attention to the Champions Tour.
