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At this time last year, Tucson golfer Nathan Tyler routed the field to win the Arizona Amateur, shot the second-lowest round at the U.S. Amateur, completed work on his UA psychology degree and, at last, turned pro.

But as good as the Sabino High School grad had become, it was not like he called a press conference to announce six-figure deals with Ping or Titleist or anybody.

On the day he became a pro, Tyler owed $30,000 in student loans accrued while playing golf for the Arizona Wildcats. He didn't own a car and had no way to pay a caddie or employ a swing coach.

As with most young golfers who aspire to join the PGA Tour, Tyler had game but not bank; making it in golf almost always requires both. Thus far, for example, Tyler has needed about $33,000 to pay entry fees to such events as the Inn of the Mountain Gods Open and the Hooters Honing Classic.

So you can imagine how blessed Tyler feels today. After finishing second in the Gateway Tour's summer championship series over the weekend, earning $21,000 in Dallas, he has pushed his first-year bank to almost $50,000.

"I couldn't ask for anything more,'' he said Monday. "I'm doing what I want to do. I'm at the point I can start paying off my student loans.''

Tyler was not part of the roll call of greats while at the UA. He didn't have the staying power of Jim Furyk, or the schoolboy credentials of Rory Sabbatini, Ted Purdy and Jason Gore.

But because Tyler didn't give up, because he endured two stints at Pima College and got steadily better, capping it with a dazzling performance in the summer of 2007, he attracted the right kind of attention.

Tucson attorney Burt Kinerk and part-time Tucson resident Ray Kish, a Spokane, Wash., automobile dealer, met with Tyler and made a deal: They would offer financial support, a partnership, as Nathan Tyler attempted to launch his pro golf career.

They asked that Tyler act responsibly, play with a purpose and carry himself like a professional. In exchange, they would provide health insurance, an automobile and help with rent and travel costs.

Minus that, making it on the pro tour, even the mini-tours, would've been almost impossible.

"Nathan is from earth,'' says Kinerk, which is his way of saying that the ex-Sabercat scratched out his golf reputation not from a country club background but, rather, from the trenches. "He's a tough (guy) and that shows in the way he persisted in getting his college degree.

"Ninety-nine percent of young guys in his position would probably have quit school and turned pro the first chance they got. And 99 percent of those guys end up as assistant club pros or in some other line of business. But Nathan stuck it out. That impressed Ray, and it impressed me.''

Impressed? In the fourth start of Tyler's pro career, in February at the Adams Tour Blackhorse Open, he survived a three-man playoff to win the championship and $5,000 in Houston.

Two weeks ago, Tyler drove from his Dallas-area apartment to Springfield, Mo., in an attempt to qualify for the Nationwide Tour's Price Cutter Charity Classic. It would be his first crack at big-time golf. In order to make the field for the Nationwide event, 308 players competing for 14 spots, he would have to shoot a 5-under-par 67.

And so he did.

Tyler had rounds of 67-70-69-73 in his first tour-sanctioned event, earning $2,104.

"I lost a lot of confidence when I was in college, but by the time I turned pro I had made a big step up,'' he says. "I have found that being a pro is actually easier than being a college player. True, the competition is much more intense, but now I can arrange my own schedule. I can work on what I need to work on any time it is necessary. I owe a lot of that to Burt and Ray.''

Kinerk, who was one of Sabbatini's initial sponsors, brokered a meeting at February's WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship in which Sabbatini spent about 90 minutes with Tyler.

During that session, Sabbatini told Tyler that it's not necessary to "beat range balls from sunup to sundown'' and that grinding on the practice tee every day was a good way to burn out rather than find some missing magic.

"Rory taught me that it's OK to relax and let my mind and body recover,'' Tyler says. "It has worked. Now I need to work on the next phase of maturing as a golfer: I need to stop freaking out and worrying about a bad shot or a bad hole.''

Tyler will play various mini-tour events until the PGA Tour's Qualifying School begins in October. He could've played in the 2007 Q-School but chose to finish his final semester at the UA and get his psychology degree.

"I've got something to fall back on now,'' he says. "But I'm hoping I can make golf my career.''

So far, so good.