Coming off of the 2009 Nationwide Tour season, Tour President - and University of Maryland alum - Bill Calfee shifted his thinking to '10 in meetings yesterday in Charleston, SC.  Given the events of this season, on his Tour or elsewhere, Calfee has a lot to consider.

Perhaps first and foremost is the motivation to bring the Nationwide Tour to South America more often given that the 2016 Olympics will be in Rio de Janeiro.  As Golfweek's Sean Martin confirmed last week, the Tour will bring a stop to Colombia for the '10 season.  This tournament, though, was in the works well before Rio turned South America into a golfing frontier.

"Certainly the Olympics causes us to take a harder look at Latin America," Calfee said.  "Although, we have been looking at Lating America for a little while now.  We have [also] talked to people in Guatemala and Costa Rica [in addition to Colombia]." 

Calfee noted that there were some two to three years of negotiations to put together the event in Colombia - an event that helps to sure up some of the gaps in the early part of the Nationwide Tour schedule.

As far as Costa Rica goes, the Tour has looked at Los Suenos resort on the Pacific coast of the country.  It's a course that I played in 2006 during my trip there.  Costa Rica could just be one option for the Nationwide Tour as they - along with the PGA Tour - try to chart a course in the Americas.

"It's an area we think we should look at strategically.  We're kind of trying to figure out what our strategic plan is and how we're going to implement it in Latin and South America."

The irony about the Nationwide Tour becoming more global aside, there has been a bit of an international incident regarding Austrlian Michael Sim's inability to use his three-win promotion since he earned it in August.  In fact, Sim told Golf Channel's Randall Mell that the inability to get priority into PGA Tour Fall Series fields is frustrating to him.  Calfee understands that the Battlefield Promotion's effectiveness has changed in the new FedExCup world for both Sim and '07 promtee Nick Flanagan, and is looking for a way to make the promotion have a more significant impact.

"It's nice to have the [Battlefield] Promotion, but if you can't do anything with it once you earn it, it's kind of hollow.  We'd like to look at getting a guy [like Michael Sim] in tournaments." 

Calfee acknowledged the flip side, though.  "But you have guys who earned their way onto the Tour last season and through Q-school, so you have to balance what the fairest access is."

Closer to home, Calfee is excited to bring the Nationwide Tour guys to the PGA Tour's headquarters at TPC Sawgrass for the Winn-Dixie Jacksonville Open at the Valley Course next season.  He's looking to use it as an opportunity to get players to Ponte Vedra to acclimate players more with the Tour's business side, but also perhaps to motivate them about what is possibly ahead of them if they can make the PGA Tour next season: a chance to play the Stadium Course in the Players Championship.

Speaking of the business side, Calfee sees the schedule as remaining close to the same next season.  They'll have about the same prize money and around the same number of tournaments (28 or 29).  Though they'll lose a million dollar event, they experienced a 3-4% increase in charitable giving in '09.

That may well stem from the value that the Nationwide Tour offers at a notably cheaper pricetag than sponsoring a PGA Tour event.

"The [price] range we're in gives us a lot more companies that we can talk to," Calfee noted.  "Hopefully, when we're talking to companies about the PGA Tour, Champions Tour, and the Nationwide Tour, if one doesn't work then we can say, 'We have more options here.'

"It's definitely another arrow in our quiver."