The tournament, created by Mike Jenkins 10 years ago, has become the most popular event on the local circuit, in part because it means that a player has had a good season just to be there. Local players earn "stars" all season for the right to be part of the field, and competition is keen.

The other reason the tournament is popular has to do with its venue—Council Fire—and how well it’s organized. Council Fire director of golf Hunt Gilliland and his staff have embraced the TPC and really made the players feel welcome. And Jenkins has done a masterful job of securing sponsorship for the event. Players are well taken care of, and earn quality prizes for each step they advance.

Play begins on Thursday with stroke-play qualifying. Match play starts on Friday and continues through Sunday.

The usual cast of characters will be competing, including former champions Pat Corey, Chris Treadway and Richard Keene. If you’re looking for an early favorite, Tom Schreiner might have to be considered after winning the last two events on the local circuit, the Men’s Metro and the Brainerd Invitational.

Recent college players Andrew Black, who has won the Metro at Council Fire, Patrick Williams and Kevin Law are always threats any time they tee it up.

•It’s been 12 years since a team from the Chattanooga area won the Tennessee Golf Association’s Two-Man Scramble (the immortal pairing of Boyd Dethero and Jimmy Chapin). Perhaps that dry spell will end next month, when the tournament comes to Black Creek. Several of Chattanooga’s best players, including several Black Creek members, will play in the popular tournament, scheduled for Oct. 6 and 7. Eighty-two teams will tee off in the tournament.

Though local knowledge helps at Black Creek, the early favorite to win would have to be the team of Danny Green, a multiple TGA championship winner who has played in two Masters, and 2003 USGA Public Links Champion Brandt Snedeker, the former Vanderbilt All-American.

Chattanooga-area players have a long history with the tournament. Larry White, then the head professional at Lookout Mountain, teamed with golfing legend Lew Oehmig to win the first Scramble, in 1975. The pair also came back with another win two years later.

One of White’s fondest golfing memories came in that inaugural Scramble, which was played at Fall Creek Falls.

"The highlight of the two days came when we were on a par 5," White recalled in the book, Gentleman Champion: Lew Oehmig’s Romance with Golf. "I had hit my second shot. He laid up 50 yards short of the green. I went for the green and missed it to the right. We were behind a bunker in four- or five-inch rough and the pin was right against the bunker. You really had to hit a high, soft shot to get it close. We went down and looked at my ball.

"I said, ‘Lew, I think we might ought to play yours. I don't know if I can hit this shot or not.’ He said, ‘I can hit it.’ I said OK. He hit it up there about two feet. Lew was tremendous around the greens."

Players at Black Creek might not need that high-lofted shot, but they will have to be familiar with the bump and run and Texas wedge. But the state’s best players have embraced Black Creek ever since it opened, and the course has become a popular venue for TGA events. Black Creek played host to the state Four-Ball championship in 2001 and 2002, and the players spoke highly of the course. In June, the Tennessee Women’s Amateur was played there, and again, the players fell in love with Black Creek.

It should be a fun venue for the Scramble.

• The Bear Trace at Harrison Bay did things right last week. Wanting to spread the word about the course’s new bermuda greens, Ron Bargatze and his staff and Bear Trace’s office in Nashville invited half the city of Chattanooga to play the course in a special one-day tournament that used a "Texas Scramble" format. Several excellent players were there.

"We had a lot of nice comments," Bargatze said. "We wanted to get the word out, and there’s no better way than positive word of mouth from good players."