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By John Maginnes
PGATOUR.com Contributor

VERONA, N.Y. -- Oscar Wilde once said, "Experience is simply the name we give to our mistakes."

With words like that, you'd think the old philosopher and poet might have been a golfer. Golf may be the only game men play that people who are considered successful fail so frequently.

Parker McLachlin learned a hard lesson about the difficulty of winning a few weeks ago in West Virginia. (Sam Greenwood/WireImage)

Most players will tell you that you can have a good year on the PGA TOUR without winning a golf tournament. Others will tell you that one win can turn a good year into a great year.

Certainly, there are players like Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson who tend to measure their accomplishments with a different yardstick than most. But even as Tiger is considered the most dominant player of the era, he loses far more often than he wins. It may not seem that way -- and it certainly doesn't to the guys he is beating -- but the fact is, Tiger has lost more than 150 times on the PGA TOUR

For mere mortals, the winning percentages are far worse than that. Steve Flesch is a three-time winner on the PGA TOUR, which is a fine accomplishment. The other side of the coin is that Steve is playing in his 315th PGA TOUR event at the Turning Stone Resort Championship this week.

The experience of having tried and failed so often, though, has made Steve a better player. Steve and players like Bart Bryant have a distinct advantage over players like Jeff Gove, who also are vying for the title at Turning Stone.

Entering the weekend, several rookies had played their way into contention. Unfortunately for Matt Hendrix and Brendon de Jonge, though, they stumbled out of the gate with early bogeys on Saturday and knocked themselves back into the pack. It is a common tale for rookies. Brendon and Matt are both quality players. But, for young players swimming in the turbulent waters of contention in a TOUR event, there is often no floatation device.

You learn over time how to handle those situations. Every player on TOUR has a story about playing himself into contention early in his career and then tripping over the finish line. But the lowlights in a career make the highlights that much sweeter.

As the final round of the Turning Stone Resort Championship begins Sunday, there is an interesting mix of experienced players and young studs vying for the title. Obviously, Steve is playing brilliantly and he is the man to beat. But, don't count out Parker McLachlin. The young Hawaiian with the elegant swing has not played near the lead in PGA TOUR events very often, but he did have an interesting battle a few weeks ago on the Nationwide Tour.

After missing the cut at the Wyndham Championship, he opted to play on the Nationwide Tour at the National Mining Association Pete Dye Classic, which was held opposite The Barclays. With no access to the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup, it seemed like a good opportunity to sharpen his game for the Fall Series.

Parker came out like a man with something to prove on that difficult Pete Dye layout. He opened with 63 and followed it with a pair of 68s. Entering the final round, Parker held the largest 54-hole lead in Nationwide Tour history. But as he told us Saturday at Turning Stone, he altered his mindset going into the final round in West Virginia, and his final-round 77 dropped him from the top spot to a tie for fourth.

Even thought the geography of the Nationwide Tour is a little different than the PGA TOUR, competition is competition. What happened in the mountains could have been a negative for Parker. But he has taken that experience and turned it into a positive, and he is eager to put those lessons to the test on Sunday. Sometimes the quest for redemption can outweigh experience. It just may on Sunday for Parker.

If there is no substitute for experience, then the converse is equally true. There is a first time for everything. On Sunday, experience will be pitted against youthful exuberance and we'll see what happens.