The Nationwide Tour is the developmental tour for the U.S.-based PGA Tour, and features professional golfers who have either failed to score well enough at that level's Qualifying School (the main tour's qualifying tournament, popularly referred to as "Q-School") to earn their PGA Tour card, or who have done so but then failed to win enough money to stay at that level. Those who are on the top 25 of the money list at year's end are given PGA Tour memberships for the next season.

The "satellite tour" was formalized by the PGA Tour in 1990. It was originally named the Ben Hogan Tour, in honor of golf great Ben Hogan. In the first season of 1990 there were thirty events, and the typical event purse was $100,000. After three seasons Nike acquired the title sponsorship and changed the tour's name to the Nike Tour, which held for seven seasons (1993-99). The tour name was changed again to the Buy.com Tour, which lasted for three seasons (2000-02). The current name is a result of the purchase of naming rights by Nationwide Insurance in 2003. In 2007 there were 32 events, one each in Australia, New Zealand, and Panama, with the remainder in the United States. The events in Australia and New Zealand are co-sanctioned by the PGA Tour of Australasia. Purses range from $450,000 to $775,000, which is about one tenth of the level on the PGA Tour.

All Nationwide Tour tournaments operate similar to typical PGA Tour tournaments in that they are all 72-hole stroke play events with a cut made after 36 holes. The cut on the Nationwide Tour is for the top 60 players and ties, unlike 70 for the PGA Tour. The fields are usually 144 or 156 players, depending on time of year (and available daylight hours). For the aforementioned international events, the joint tour will split players spots with the Nationwide Tour for proper sanctioning. As with the PGA Tour, the winner of the tournament will get a prize of 18% of the total purse.

Since this tour is a developmental tour, players are usually vying to play well enough to gain status on the PGA Tour. The main ways of having status for the Nationwide Tour are to finish in a group of the top 50 golfers at qualifying school after the top 25 and ties, those who finished between 26th and 65th on the previous year's money list, and those who were formally fully exempt on the PGA Tour in the recent past. Around 14 open qualifying spots are given during the Monday of tournament week, and those who finished in the top 25 of a Nationwide event are automatically exempt into the next tournament. Past PGA Tour winners aged 48 and 49 can play on the Nationwide Tour on an increased basis to prepare themselves for the Champions Tour.

Since 1997, a player who wins three tournaments in one year on the Nationwide Tour receives an immediate promotion to the PGA Tour for the remainder of the year and for the following year. This "performance promotion" (sometimes informally referred to as a "battlefield promotion") has occurred eight times: