RALEIGH - Sometimes, when the sponsor of a tournament gives out a car to the winner, the player will trade it in for something else, or take the cash. Not David Mathis. The BMW he won three weeks ago with his first win on the Nationwide Tour is a keeper.

"My wife's going to end up driving it, which is fine," Mathis said Tuesday. "But I think it's the thought, every time I walk outside and see that car. It's a remembrance of all the work. People always say, 'If you can win on the Nationwide Tour, you can win on the PGA Tour.' "

The road-weary Jeep Grand Cherokee in his Morrisville garage with 248,000 miles on it serves the same purpose. Like Mathis, it's a survivor of countless mini-tours and all-night drives to Monday qualifiers, all of it to get to the position he's in now.

The Nationwide Tour visits the TPC Wakefield Plantation this week for The Rex Hospital Open, and it's a great time for Mathis to come home. He'll tee off for Thursday's first round as the Nationwide Tour's leading money-winner, with enough digits next to his name to all but assure him of a spot on the PGA Tour next summer.

A long and windy road

This is where Mathis always wanted to be. It just took him a little longer to get here than he expected. Only three years ago, he was caddying during this tournament, unable to find a way into the field. Now, as a full member of the Nationwide Tour, he has playing privileges.

A Winston-Salem native and 1997 Campbell graduate, Mathis, 34, spent almost a decade grinding away on the lower tiers of pro golf, working and waiting and praying and hoping for the break that would take him to the next level.

As he watched his classmates advance through the business world, he couldn't seem to get any traction in the golf world. They showed off their shiny new luxury sedans and fancy houses. He put more miles on the Jeep while living in an apartment with three roommates.

In 2004, he tried to quit -- crashed out of Tour Qualifying School at the first stage and called his then-girlfriend, now-wife Chastity to tell her he was hanging it up. She talked him out of it, and good thing she did. Three weeks later, he won on the Tarheel Tour.

Starting over

At that point, Mathis had been working with Raleigh teaching pro Patrick Kelley for a few months, a difficult process that saw Mathis tear apart his swing and start over at age 30. He was on the verge of seeing some real results, and life conspired to drive home his progress.

As little as three years ago, he couldn't wrangle a sponsor's exemption to this very tournament, and instead caddied for a friend on the tour, David Faught. (They missed the cut.)

This week, instead of toting a bag he's carrying the burden of being the favorite -- in 12 starts this year, Mathis has one win, one second and three other top-15 finishes -- in his own backyard, at a course where he plays two or three times a week when he's not away at a tournament.

He broke through three weeks ago at the BMW Charity Pro-Am in Greer, S.C., then failed, only hours later, to make it through local qualifying for the U.S. Open at Duke University Golf Club.

But Mathis followed up his first Nationwide win with a runner-up finish the next week, cementing his position atop the money list and effectively locking up a spot at the next level next year, and without the hassle and pressure of a 10th trip to Q school.

If he can hold onto the No. 1 spot on the Nationwide Tour, he'd get a full exemption on the PGA Tour: no qualifying, no waiting it out as an alternate, just an open invitation to play in any tournament, anywhere.

"Another player said to me last week, 'You can make a career in two months,' " Mathis said. "With golf, if you play really well over a certain period of time, you can change your life. For me to have the opportunity to go to the PGA Tour next year, that's going to change our life, just to go.

"Now, my goals are changing. I realize I'm going to go there. Now what am I going to do when I get there? My life is going to change significantly, but I'm looking forward to it. To play against Tiger [Woods], that's pretty good."

In 11 years, Mathis has played in five PGA Tour events without making the cut. Who knows how many he'll play next year, what rewards may await him beyond the sheer challenge. And there's still work left to do this summer, not to mention this week.

That BMW sits in his driveway, just as the Jeep sits in his garage, both symbols of how long a drive it was for Mathis to get this far.

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