The Burke County Open golf tournament recently finished up another very successful year with 65 entries and great corporate sponsorship from AJ’s Steakhouse.
The nearly 40-year-old event is played on Friday at Mimosa Hills, at Quaker Meadows on Saturday and finished at Silver Creek Plantation on Sunday.
Tim Smith, Silver Creek pro and three-time winner of the tournament, heads up the planning and organization with help from Dan Dobson at Mimosa Hills and Jerry McMahon and Eddie Wall at Quaker Meadows.
AJ’s made a $4,000 gift to the tournament and fed all the participants every day. In addition to trophies for the overall winner and flight champions, each player was given a sleeve of Titleist Pro V1 golf balls, a cap and a bag towel.
Mike Williams, a Silver Creek member, is the only other three-time winner of the event in addition to Smith. Our hall of fame golfers, the late Billy Joe Patton and Joe Cheves, were past winners of the tournament.
Woods finally healthy?
Other than a few tournaments he entered preceding the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup playoffs, Tiger Woods re-enters the world of tournament golf this week for the first time in nearly a year.
He had knee surgery four times by age 35 and still has problems with his left leg. To the casual observer, golf doesn’t look all that hard on your body. But when you’ve hit as many shots as Tiger has, that’s another matter altogether.
His dad had him hitting balls as soon as he could walk and entering junior tournaments as a small boy. For a little more than two years now, he has not been physically able to play on a regular basis.
Will he be able to play enough to reach his life’s goal, topping Jack Nicklaus’ 18 major crowns? What used to look like a sure thing is not so sure anymore.
One of Nicklaus’ greatest assets was good health, especially during his peak years. He won his last major, the 1986 Masters, at age 46. To me, Nicklaus would be a hall of famer if he hadn’t won a single one, as he finished runner-up a record 19 times in majors.
That’s 37 firsts or seconds: one of sports’ greatest achievements.
“Two-Glove” making his own breaks
The Golf Channel has a program called “The Big Break,” that’s like many other reality TV shows. Contestants compete weekly with a loser going home each time.
A young plant worker from Bishopville, S.C., was chosen and arrived at the show wearing a golf glove on both hands and was quickly dubbed “Tommy Two-Glove.”
Tommy Gainey went on to win his competition and was given an opportunity to play on the PGA Tour. He quickly made good on his chance of a lifetime and is now a tour regular at the highest level. His winnings this year topped $1.7 million.
He and his brother loved baseball and were both good players. When they decided to give golf a try, their dad could only afford one set of clubs and the boys played out of the same bag, learning to play with a baseball grip.
Kobe pondering Europe
The Nov. 1 start of a new NBA season now looks in doubt, as the league has cancelled preseason games through Oct. 15. The owners and players have not settled on a new labor contract for this year, and some of the players are considering playing overseas.
Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers has been offered $6 million to play in Italy. He spent part of his childhood there while his father played for a pro team overseas, so Bryant speaks Italian as well as English.
Roy Waters is a sports columnist for The News Herald. Waters was baseball and basketball coach at Salem High School from 1955-66, where his teams won 18 championships. In 2007, he was inducted into the Burke County Sports Hall of Fame.
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