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Steve Millizer Whether you're an "Early Birder" or late bloomer; you can pretty well bet there will be a golf tournament somewhere around the western Kentucky region from May until September. With 21 area golf courses holding at least one weekend event, it takes all summer to fit them into an already jam-packed schedule. In men's tournaments alone, there's 21 big events crammed into 18 weekends. That doesn't include the 19 couples tournaments and numerous team events and weekday women's tournaments along the way. There will be a few adjustments to the "traditional" tournament schedule this season, which helped open up a date for a new men's invitational. For the men, the season traditionally starts once again at the Calvert City Country Club's Early Bird invitational on May 10-11. The last major men's event will be the Black Patch invitationals of Princeton Country Club and the Texas Roadhouse Tri-State Seniors at Paxton Park, both in September. The season's biggest change is the Western Kentucky Amateur's move to June this season. The region's oldest event, it normally has occupied the first weekend in August on the schedule. However, that also is the same weekend of the Fancy Farm Picnic, and the newly-organized Mayfield/Graves County Country Club didn't want to conflict with one of the county's biggest events any longer. The tournament will now be played June 21-22, which was an open weekend for men's events. With the early August weekend open, Brake Creek Golf Club's Todd Butts found a ready spot for his new Texas Roadhouse West Kentucky Open. The tournament will be held August 1-2 with both professional and amateur divisions. Butts would like to develop the tournament as a summer championship with most of the area's top men's events held in June and July. He hopes to attract a field of 160 amateurs and 40 professionals and plans to invited the champions of earlier events to the 36-hole event. The summer's big men's event, however, will likely be the June 10-12 AT&T Kentucky State Amateur, to be held at the Country Club of Paducah. A qualifying event for local golfers will be May 31 at the Silos Golf Course. Couples tournaments will also start in May with Dogwood Hills County Club hosting its Fiegles Coupes Tourney May 17-18 and Fulton County Club the Guys and Dolls on May 24-25. South Highlands County Club's Kings and Queens tournament finishes the season Oct. 18-19. The women's Tri-State tournaments will be held at Ballard County Country Club (June 10), Benton Country Club (July 7) Calvert City Country Club (August 12) and Paxton Park Golf Course (September 10) with the Paducah Sun's Florence Paxton Memorial held July 28-30 |
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