SANDY — Even though the Nationwide Tour promotes itself as the tour with the "stars of tomorrow," it still has many top PGA Tour players from the past, including several from the very recent past.

Tour winners such as Dan Forsman and Jay Don Blake, local players who are gearing up for the Champions Tour in a couple of years, are playing in Utah this week along with tour veterans such as Jay Delsing, Mark Wiebe, Steve Pate and 2005 Utah winner Garrett Willis.

Those guys will be on hand the next few days as the Utah Championship is played at Willow Creek Country Club. The 72-hole tourney begins this morning and concludes Sunday when one golfer will walk away with $90,000.

Another former PGA Tour star on hand this week is Chris Riley, who won a PGA Tour event in 2002 and just three years ago was a member of the Ryder Cup team. Riley even teamed with his good friend, Tiger Woods, for a victory during the loss to Europe.

Riley has won nearly $9 million in nine seasons on the PGA Tour. But after going from 23rd on the money list in two consecutive years, 2002 and 2003, Riley plummeted to 183rd and 150th the past two years and lost his exempt status on the tour.

This year, with conditional status, he has won $225,884, but he only ranks 175th on the money list. He figures he has a better chance of getting back on the PGA Tour by playing in the rest of the Nationwide events than trying to get in PGA Tour events.

"That was my plan all year long to see how I did, and I'm in better shape here, so I'm going to stay here," said Riley, who ranks 47th on the Nationwide list.

Riley knows as well as anyone that there is no guaranteed money in golf and that he needs to play better.

"It's tough," he said. "We have no guaranteed contracts. If you have a bad year, you're done, that's just the way it is. Unfortunately I've had a couple of them. I'm pretty much done until I play well again."

Riley and his wife have had two daughters since his big year in 2003, but otherwise he has no excuses for his play the past three years.

"I've tasted the Ryder Cup, but you know what, I haven't played well the last couple of years," he said. As for playing the Nationwide Tour he said, "It's been hard, but a lot of guys do it."

During the 2004 Ryder Cup, Riley received some extra, unwanted attention for declining to play in an afternoon match after he and Woods beat Darren Clarke and Ian Poulter, saying he was tired. For not playing, he was criticized by the media and Ryder Cup captain Hal Sutton.

"I think they were looking for a scapegoat and I got it, but that's the way it goes," Riley said with a shrug. "But it was the best experience I've ever had, even though we lost. I won in '02, but it didn't even compare to the Ryder Cup."

Riley realizes how thin the margin is between the PGA Tour and Nationwide and knows he can play the big tour again.

"There's a real fine line," he said. "There's 50 guys out here who are good enough to play up there on the tour. It's a couple of putts here and a couple of putts there."

TOURNEY NOTES: Several players with local ties are in the 156-player field. Daniel Summerhays won the Nationwide Tour event in Ohio in mid-July and immediately turned pro. His brother, Boyd Summerhays, is also playing, along with former West High standouts Tony and Gipper Finau, Sandy's Steve Scheniter, Old Mill assistant Mark Owen, Salt Lake's Kury Reynolds, Bountiful's Garrett Clegg, ex-Weber State golfer Barry Schenk and Draper's Ryan Ellis . ... The 18th hole has been transformed from a par-4 into a 171-yard par-3. Tournament officials hope the change will make for a more exciting finish. ... Fourteen golfers qualified for the tournament in qualifiers that concluded Wednesday morning, including Ellis, Schenk, Will Dottley, Mike Sposa, Wil Collins, Tyler Leon, Adam Meyer, Nick Malinowski, Gary Woodland, John Hayes, Issac Jimison, Michael Nicoletti, Matt Call and Kenny Ebalo.

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