Bermuda’s Michael Sims is set to make his long awaited Nationwide Tour debut at this week’s Movistar Panama Championships in Panama.

The 27-year-old professional will compete among a field of nearly 150 golfers all vying for a piece of the $550,000 prizemoney. The eventual winner of the 72-hole tournament will pocket $99,000.

For the fourth straight year the Movistar Panama Championships will be played at the 7,042 yard, par-70 Club de Golf de Panama.

The 2007 Nationwide Tour schedule features a record 32 events and record prize money of nearly $18 million.

A fired-up Sims said yesterday that he was raring to go and confident he could achieve some of the goals that he had set himself this year.

“I can’t wait to start the season. I feel great mentally and physically and my I’m also quite happy with my game at the moment,” Sims told The Royal Gazette.

Sims created a stir on the local golf scene early last December when he qualified for the lucrative Nationwide Tour at the PGA Tour Q School in La Quinta, California.

It was his biggest success to date in a career that continues to flourish.

Nationwide tournaments operate similarly to typical PGA Tour events in that they are all 72-hole strokeplay events with a cut made after 36 holes.

The cut on the Nationwide Tour is for the top 60 players and ties, with event winners receiving 18 percent of the total prize purse which often translates into a six-figure cheque.

Since 1997, a player who wins three tournaments in one year on the Nationwide Tour receives immediate promotion to the PGA Tour for the remainder of the season.

A place among the top ten Nationwide money earners at the end of the year means a membership card for the following year’s PGA Tour.

A total of 15 Nationwide events will be televised this year on The Golf Channel.

Last year’s Movistar Panama Championship winner, Tripp Isenhour, who won by three shots over Kevin Kraft, will not be back this year to defend his crown as the American was among those earning PGA Tour cards at the end of last season.

“I really can’t wait to start the season. I’ve been doing the same things that I have been for the past six months,” added Sims, who will be accompanied by college friend and caddie Tom Giles in Panama this week.