E-notes: Nationwide Tour alums fare well in Open

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Trahan

There were 52 former and 11 current Nationwide Tour players in the field at last week's U.S. Open. Six of them recorded Top-10 finishes?D.J. Trahan (tied for fourth), John Merrick (tied for sixth), Eric Axley (tied for ninth), Heath Slocum (tied for ninth), Brandt Snedeker (tied for ninth) and Camilo Villegas (tied for ninth).

The Tour is in Tennessee this week for the Knoxville Open presented by Food City. The tournament is one of the four original events remaining from the first Nationwide Tour season of 1990. The others are the Price Cutter Charity Championship presented by Dr. Pepper, the Preferred Health Systems Wichita Open and the Albertsons Boise Open presented by First Health.

Six winners of the Knoxville Open presented by Food City have gone on to win on the PGA TOUR?Jeff Maggert (1990), Brian Henninger (1992), Tom Scherrer (1995), J.J. Henry (2000), Heath Slocum (2001) and Vaughn Taylor (2003). Only one other event on the Tour has seen more of its winners go on to victory on the PGA TOUR. That would be the Nationwide Tour Championship which has seen seven of its winners win on the PGA TOUR.

This will be the 10th time the Knoxville Open is played at Fox Den Country Club. The first event at Fox Den was in 1999 when Jeff Gove won. The Knoxville Open, which dates to the Nationwide Tour's inaugural year of 1990, was played at Willow Creek Country Club for five years before moving to Three Ridges Golf Club from 1995 to 1998.

Haas

Since moving to Fox Den Country Club, this event has had a mixed bag of tight finishes and routs. In each of the last two seasons, players have won going away, with Hunter Haas winning by five strokes in 2006 and Chez Reavie winning by three a year ago. The record-winning margin in Knoxville came in 1993 when Tim Conley set a tournament 72-hole record by shooting a 23-under 261 on the par-71 Willow Creek Country Club. He defeated a trio of players by seven. Here is the breakdown at Fox Den:

Of the previous 18 winners of the Knoxville Open, 17 have hailed from the United States. The only international winner was Australia's Kim Felton, who won in 2005. Canada's Glen Hnatiuk lost in a playoff in 1999, and Australia's Aaron Baddeley finished second in 2002.

This is one of two Nationwide Tour events Tennessee will host in 2008. The Chattanooga Classic is set for Oct. 13-19. The Memphis suburb of Germantown hosts an annual PGA TOUR event, the just-completed Stanford St. Jude Championship.