E.A. Sports Today

Local golf notes

Sunny King Charity Classic alters scoring rules in hopes of speeding up play; UPDATE on Silver Lakes Championship

By Al Muskewitz
East Alabama Sports Today

One of the biggest challenges facing the Sunny King Charity Classic committee every year is finding a way to ease pace of play.

Rounds going beyond five hours are common in the tournament and a common complaint among the players. This year, event organizers are attacking the issue through the scorecard.

This year, gross bogey will be the maximum score on every hole.

Tournament scoring rules don’t allow handicap strokes to take a score past par, so gross bogey shouldn’t impact the leaderboard appreciably; in fact, research indicated it would not have impacted last year’s championship flight rotation at all. And in the scramble/scamble rounds where handicaps either don’t come into play or do on a limited basis, it will keep players from scraping it around.

This year’s tournament is July 7-9 with best-ball rounds at Anniston Country Club, a scramble at Silver Lakes and a modified scramble at Cider Ridge.

As of the beginning of this week around 100 non-sponsor’s teams have registered for the tournament, a pace that’s slightly ahead of previous years.

In a related Classic item, teams will now be limited to one practice round per tournament site at the $25 fee contracted by the tournament. Any other arrangements are at the discretion of the individual courses. Contact the courses for availability.

UPCOMING EVENTS: Entries are being accepted for the Silver Lakes Championship, the fourth event on the Calhoun County Golf Tour schedule, June 24-25. Entry fee is $125, $50 for RTJ Platinum/Annual members. Unlimited practice rounds June 19-23 at $25 (cart fee for RTJ members). Play will be on the Mindbreaker & Backbreaker 9s (orange/white tees Saturday, player flights white tee Sunday, championships flight purple/orange tees Sunday). Deadline for entries is June 21.

The Hill Men’s Golf Association is putting together a 27-hole Par-3 Contest June 10 at Anniston Municipal Golf Course. Entry fee is $50 and the field is limited to the first 40 paid entries.

Reach out to the golf courses for more details.

ON THE MOVE: The Calhoun County boys and girls high school tournaments are changing venues in 2018. The boys tournament will be moving to Cider Ridge, while the girls are headed to Anniston Country Club. The events have been played at Pine Hill Country Club.

SENIOR CHALLENGE: Anniston’s Chip Howell plays in the U.S. Senior Challenge at Birmingham’s Pine Tree CC starting Tuesday. He’s part of a team that includes Birmingham players Earle Bidez, Alan Seigel and Scott Richards.

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