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"IF YOU LIKE GOLF"
online golf column
by
Chris Dortch
April 17, 2009
Concerned with
declining participation in the annual Brainerd Invitational (as
well as all Chattanooga-area amateur golf tournaments), Mike
Jenkins and Richard Keene decided to delve into the situation a
bit.
Jenkins and Keene have done more for local
amateur golf, from an administrative standpoint, than anyone in
the last 20 years or so. Their concern about the future of
tournaments such as the Brainerd Invitational, which is scheduled
for May 2-3, is genuine. Neither wanted to see the historic event
diminished in any way, or reduced to just an elite field of better
amateurs and college and high school players.
“We spent a lot of time looking at it,”
Jenkins said. “We realized that, although the championship level
players are still playing, higher handicap players have stopped.
So Richard and I interviewed several of them. And after talking to
them, we came up with four changes.”
• A points system will be used for higher
handicap players. “We heard over and over from the higher handicap
players that they don’t want to post a score, or see their score
published on the web or the newspaper,” Jenkins said. “So we’ll
use a points system, which they’re used to in their company league
or the industrial league. We’re trying to get them in their
comfort zone.”
Higher handicap players will compete from the
white tees both days. They’ll be flighted off the points they
score in the first round. Championship level players, who will
compete at stroke play, will benefit from this change, too.
They’ll play from the back tees both days.
• Senior players who so desire can now play
the gold tees. And they’ll compete in their own division under the
same points system.
• The tournament is now offering
on-line
registration for the first time, which means last minute entrants
won’t have to drive to Brainerd to enter. That has kept a lot of
potential players out of the field. "For some reason a lot
of players wait until the eleventh hour to enter, and if they
didn't have time to drive out to the golf course they were simply
out of luck," Keene said.
“The TGA has gone to on-line registration,”
Jenkins said. “They don’t even receive mail entries anymore. For
Brainerd, everybody will have a choice, and either method will be
the same price. The tournament committee will absorb the cost of
the credit card fees.”
The same options will also be used for the
Men’s Metro later this year.
• Players will be able to create their own
foursomes for the first round. “This actually isn’t new,” Jenkins
said. “We’ve been doing this, but it’s new to people who haven’t
played in the tournament for a while. Of course Sunday we pair
strictly by scores, but in the first round, people are more
comfortable playing with their buddies, so they’ll be allowed to
make their own groups.”
Last year the Brainerd Invitational was won
by Lee University sophomore Sam Bedwell, who shot a back-nine 32
to overtake Matt Mathis.
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