By STEVE WILLIAMS

Why do young professional golfers, many of them just out of college, join a golf tour where the title sponsor is Hooters?

a. Play golf by day and frolic with gorgeous Hooters girls by night.

b. Earn lots of money to quickly pay back college loans.

c. Stay in the best hotels and order room service every morning.

d. Get their names mentioned on SportsCenter.

None of the above. Ask the audience and phone a friend. It’s still none of the above.

"If people think we’re out there to have a good time, that’s the furthest thing from the truth," said Ryan Gioffre, a Greensboro Day School graduate who joined the Hooters Tour, now officially called the NGA Tour, after graduating from Wake Forest in 1998. "Ninety-five percent of the players are very serious about what they are doing and are trying to get somewhere."

That somewhere is the PGA Tour.

"As far as I’m concerned, if you don’t make it through Tour (Qualifying) School, the whole rest of the year is dedicated to preparing yourself to try it again," Gioffre said. "You do whatever it takes to get better for the next year."

The NGA Tour, which began as the TC Jordan Tour in 1988, prides itself as being the third largest men’s professional tour in the U.S., ranking only below the PGA Tour and the Buy.com Tour. It’s on solid ground as a proving ground for young professionals.

NGA Tour officials can readily call the names of "alumni" who have moved on to the big time. Lee Janzen, John Daly, Jim Furyk, Tom Lehman and Walter Hall are among many who prepped on the Hooters Tour on their way up the ladder.

"The NGA Tour has helped more professionals acquire their PGA, Senior PGA, and Buy.com tour cards than any other developmental tour," it says on the NGA web site.

Two players who are currently on the PGA Tour (Cliff Kresge and Richie Coughlin) were carrying Hooters bags a year ago. And Chad Campbell, the NGA Tour’s leading money winner in 2000, is now ranked third on the Buy.com’s cash count with more than $175,000.

"I know that a ton of guys out here are going to make it out there (PGA Tour)," said Elliot Gealy, who lives in Salisbury and played collegiately at Clemson. "You just keep working at what you’re doing and believe in what you can do and there’s no doubt in your mind that you’re going to get out there."

Brian Sharp, 29, of Winston-Salem keeps the faith although six previous tries at Q-School have proved fruitless.

"There are a lot of guys that I played college golf with that have played out here that have gone on to get on the Tour," said Sharp, who played collegiately at Virginia Tech. "You have to look at what those guys have done. I hope to play on the Tour at some point and I feel like I’ve gotten better every year."

Going into the San Antonio event July 16-22, Gealy ranked 19th on the NGA Tour money list with $23,679, Sharp was 22nd with $22,302 and Gioffre was 52nd with $10,489. At the top of the list was Justin Bolli of Roswell, Ga., with $83,006. Eight other players had won more than $40,000.

"If you finish in the top 10 you can make money," Gealy said. "Last week (at Wilmington), I finished seventh and won $3,650. That’s $2,600 more than I spent."

The tour rewards its winner with about $22,000 per event and the runner-up settles for about half that. The pay drops off steadily after that. A top-25 finish is the approximate break-even point for the week’s expenses and everybody who survives the 36-hole cut gets at least $400.

"In this life, if you can just break even you’re doing well," added 25-year-old Gealy, who has some individual sponsors who help him cover the $650 tournament entry fees.

"Sometimes you have to watch your checkbook every week, which is not a whole lot of fun," said Sharp, who doesn’t have any sponsorship.

Gioffre, 26 and also sponsorless, was struggling financially until his game came together at Bay Tree Plantation, the Tour’s Myrtle Beach stop that ended July 1. He played himself into the final group on Sunday and finished third, winning $8,000.

"That was a much-needed check," Gioffre said. "It’s very expensive to play mini-tour golf. It’s about $1,100 a week when you add up the entry fee, hotel, food and traveling. You have to watch what you spend."

Although some of the Tour’s players are married and travel with their families in tow, Gioffre, Gealy and Sharp are single.

Although one can travel cheaper than two, there’s still a budget to watch.

"You try to find good rates at hotels," Sharp said. "This week (at Myrtle Beach) we got a condo right here at the course and it cost us $140 apiece for the week. There were three of us and stuff like that really helps. And usually there’s a host hotel that usually gives you a pretty good rate.

"You almost always have somebody you’re rooming with and that definitely helps on expenses," Sharp added. "Plus it’s nice to have guys to go out at night and eat with and to play practice rounds with."

Gealy, Sharp and Gioffre carry their own bags most of the time. Caddies can be expensive.

A few players have wives on the bag and at the Myrtle Beach stop Gealy’s dad, Sam (the golf coach at Catawba College), gave his son some inexpensive help.

The NGA Tour has 24 dates and the most distant venues are in San Antonio and Milwaukee. There are nine off-weeks on the schedule and some of the players enter only selected tourneys. The fields are limited to about 168 per event, but 250 players have earned at least one check this year.

"I’ve been driving everywhere," Gealy said. "The only one I missed was in Indiana. But I drove up to Milwaukee the next week, then out to St. Louis and down to Decatur, Alabama and then back home (before the events in Wilmington and Myrtle Beach). That’s part of the life you’ve got to get used to."

On the off weeks, the players usually spend time at home (Gealy, Sharp and Gioffre stay with their parents when not on the road) and work on their games at their home courses. Sometimes they tee it up in Monday qualifiers for PGA or Buy.com tournaments or find other events to play in. Gealy, for example, picked up a nice $4,515 check July 8 for a fifth-place finish in the Crown Royal Open near Williamsburg, Va.

The final two months of the NGA Tour take the players to New Orleans July 26-29, then to Bay St. Louis, La., Inverrary, Fla., Lakeland, Fla., Pensacola, Fla., and Greenville, Ala.

After the Greenville event ends Sept. 23, the top 100 on the points list are invited to play in the Tour Championship Sept. 27-30 in Atlanta. A $250,000 purse is divided there, twice what most of the regular events offer.

A top-100 ranking also guarantees a spot on the NGA Tour the following year, but even the number one player is no better off than any other pro when it comes down to making 2002 reservations for the major tours. Unlike the Buy.com Tour, where its top players earn berths on the PGA Tour the following year, the NGA has no such status. If fact, the NGA Tour is largely ignored by the PGA Tour.

What a player will have earned through playing the NGA Tour, though, is valuable experience of playing a full season of 72-hole tournaments with money and pressure riding on almost every shot.

"The Hooters Tour is very competitive," said Gioffre. "You look at the numbers that are winning each week and you can see the type of golfers that are out here. I don’t care what golf course you’re playing, that’s good golf."

Gioffre finished 16 under par at Bay Tree and was three shots off the pace. And 19 under par was not one of the better winning scores this year.

The first stage of this year’s Tour Qualifying School is set for October at 12 sites around the nation, one of those being National Golf Club in Pinehurst. Thousands, including Gioffre, Gealy and Sharp, are expected to ante up the $4,000 entry fee.

Survivors move on to Stage 2 in November. The ones who make it through that round advance to the finals Nov. 26-Dec. 3 at West Palm Beach, Fla., knowing they have earned as least conditional status on the Buy.com Tour the following year.

But only a few who bring their best games at the right place and the right time will move on to the major tours in 2002. The rest will face the decision that Sharp, Gealy and Gioffre faced after falling short a year ago: return to the mini-tours or find another job.

"There’s a very small hole all of us are trying to fit through where one shot can really make a difference. It’s just a very fine line that we’re all walking," Gioffre said.