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Hundreds and thousands of man-hours go into a Tour stop such as the 84 Lumber Classic, which ended Sunday. Jason Gore earned his first victory on the PGA Tour at the event at Nemacolin Woodlands Resort in Farmington.

After taking a well-deserved day off Monday, tournament officials will meet this morning to plan for the 2006 Classic. That meeting won't be the start of the planning for next year, though; those meetings have been going on for a few months already.

Looking back over the just-completed tournament, the conclusion to be drawn is that all of that work up on the mountain was well worth the effort.

If it's true that hard work will most always be rewarded, then Joe Hardy, his daughter, Maggie Hardy Magerko, and the thousands of 84 Lumber Company and Nemacolin Woodlands Resort associates and volunteers don't have to look far to find their rewards.

In two years, the guys holding the Fat Bird Trophy at the end of the tournament were the No. 1 player at the time, Vijay Singh, and Gore -- 2005's Cinderella story in golf.

Every golf tournament that sells a ticket wants very much to have a high-profile player's name attached to its championship. It's good for advertising, good for marketing, good for ticket sales.

In Singh's case, he won just a few days after signing a sponsorship deal that put the 84 Lumber on the side of his visor.

That wasn't the case for Gore last week, although the 31-year-old California native, whose mother and brother live in Western Pennsylvania, certainly has enough Pittsburgh in him to make him a candidate to become even more of part of the 84 Lumber Classic one day.

And although the tournament was a tremendous success -- crowds announced at more than 200,000, concession and merchandise, charitable contributions from the Hardys, fans and players are expected to increase dramatically -- the 84 Lumber Classic hit a home run when it chose Gore to be the recipient one of the available sponsor's exemptions.

It turns out to be a great call from within the tournament committee, but even if he hadn't, Gore's personality and his being the best story in golf this year will do nothing but good for the tournament, which now has three years in the books.

Since he succumbed with tremendous grace to the pressure of the final round of the U.S. Open in June, Gore has won the admiration of the golf world by coming back to win three times on the Nationwide Tour, earning an automatic promotion to the PGA Tour.

The whispers have already begun that this burly man is John Daly without the issues. A guy who can hit it a mile and execute his short game well enough to make a golf ball dance like a butterfly with sore feet.

But Gore is more than that. Daly is referred to as an "everyman's golfer" meaning he plays with his shirt-tail out, hits it everywhere, finds it and hits it again and looks forward to the beverages after the round.

Gore is every man, too. He came close to quitting the game earlier this year because of a lack of success and, even more importantly, he'll never forget where he came from.

"This could happen to any one of us (on the Nationwide Tour) and somebody coming out of the Top 20 this year is going to do the same thing that I'm doing right now," Gore said at his post-tournament press conference. "And that just shows you how many good players there are on that tour, and how great that whole tour is for golf, and how much respect it doesn't get.

"You watch it on TV on the Golf Channel and it's great stuff because everybody has got a story. Everybody is fighting for their life. It's not a bunch of millionaires out here just doing what they do," Gore said. "Everybody has a story and everybody has got a heart and is fighting. It's a pretty great place."

And because of his deep feelings for the Nationwide Tour, Gore will not be playing in the Valero Texas Open on the PGA Tour. He'll be playing in the Albertsons Boise Open Presented by First Health, the Nationwide event that gave him a sponsor's exemption when he got out of college.

Call it a two home run week for the 84 Lumber Classic.

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