West Virginia Golf Industry Can Be an Economic Engine

BRIDGEPORT -- By Tim McNeely, president of the McNeely Group and executive tournament director of the National Mining Association Pete Dye Classic.

This Aug. 23– 26 the Pete Dye Golf Club in Bridgeport once again will host the National Mining Association Pete Dye Classic.

As far as golf goes in West Virginia, there is no bigger professional golf event. In fact, with the fifth-largest winner’s purse, it is one of the biggest events on the PGA Nationwide Tour itself.

Yet, it is not the 156 professional golfers that have the most to gain. Given the growth of our state’s golf industry and the opportunity to host a PGA TOUR sanctioned event, it is West Virginia and our economy that have the most to gain. Sure the Pete Dye Classic is four rounds of championship golf played by some of the best players in the world.

If you think the Nationwide Tour is the minor leagues, think again: 43 percent of this years’ Nationwide Tour are from the PGA TOUR, and 65 percent of the current PGA TOUR are former Nationwide Tour members.

All you have to do is tune into a PGA TOUR telecast and you will see the leaderboard littered with names that have played right here in West Virginia.

In fact, this years’ Masters champion — Zach Johnson — was the 2003 Nationwide Tour Player of the Year before enjoying success on the PGA TOUR.

But the Pete Dye Classic is so much more. It is also a local economic engine.

A multitude of participants — caddies, spectators, hotels, restaurants, gyms and dry-cleaners etc. — enjoy a spike in their summer revenues. In fact, according to the PGA TOUR, an average week on the Nationwide Tour yields $5 million in the communities in which they are played.

That’s not all. Though the Pete Dye Classic is the only golf event in West Virginia to be televised live to more than 75 million viewers worldwide, we all should hope it will not always be that way. Wouldn’t we all love to see more events televised live from our great state?

After all, the golf demographic is exactly the market West Virginia needs to attract. According to the research, the Golf Channel viewer is more educated and earns more than any other network viewer. They are decision makers. And they are looking to invest.

Why shouldn’t they invest in West Virginia?

Just consider the importance that golf is playing in our state’s efforts to encourage tourism and then look at the development that is going on around many of our state’s best golf courses.

Granted, the Pete Dye Classic is a premiere golf event in our State and the course is one of the best in the nation (recently ranked fourth in Golfweek magazine’s Top 100 Courses of the Modern Era — of the more than 10,000 golf courses built since 1960).

The Pete Dye Golf Club is but one course in West Virginia which has drawn golf enthusiasts and perhaps, more importantly, developers to our great state.

Stonewall Resort, The Greenbrier, Glade Springs and many other courses across the state provide perfect venues for increased residential and business development and continue to provide opportunities for long-term economic growth. Just in the last 10 years we have seen the addition of some wonderful golf courses including Stonewall Resort, the Palmer Course at Oglebay Park, Twisted Gun, the Snead at the Greenbrier, The Highlands Golf Club in Pendleton County and the completion of StoneHaven at Glade Springs (with another — WoodHaven — under way). This is in addition to renovations the Greenbrier’s Old White course and Bel Meadow’s Robert Trent Jones design. This brings our golf course total to more than 120 in the state of West Virginia.

To what can this growth be attributed? The importing of golf enthusiasts from Florida, home to more courses than any other state? The “Tiger Woods Effect” or some other factor? Who cares?

Regardless of the contributing factors, golf is alive and well, and West Virginia is in the perfect position to capitalize upon its growth.

If West Virginia truly is open for business, can there be any better place to showcase our many offerings in such a positive light? Where better to display our natural resource heritage and success in mining reclamation at the same time? Golf is an ideal way to convince tourists, visitors and investors alike that West Virginia truly is a great place to live, work and play.

Men's Marshal Men's Golf to Play First Spring Event in San Antonio Beginning Monday

SAN ANTONIO, Texas - The Marshall University men's golf team will kick-off its 2008 spring season with the 13th annual UTSA Intercollegiate, hosted by UT-San Antonio, at historic Oak Hills Country Club. The two-day tournament begins with a 9 a.m. ET shotgun start on Monday and concludes on Tuesday with the final 18 holes.

After several qualifying rounds, head coach Joe Feaganes' lineup consists of seniors Trent Schambach and Jonathan Pepe, sophomores Christian Brand and Josh Boswell and junior Nathan Kinker. Brand, the 2007 Conference USA Freshman of the Year, led the Thundering Herd in the fall season with a 72.25 stroke average. Kinker (74.17) and Schambach (74.33) placed second and third, respectively, in four events last fall.

Marshall placed 12th in last season's UTSA Intercollegiate with a three-round score of 918. Sam Houston State won the event with an 865. Pepe shot a 225 (t-29) while Brand's 230 put him in a tie for 49th place.

The 16-team field includes Air Force, Central Arkansas, DePaul, Illinois State, Louisiana-Monroe, Marshall, McNeese State, Mississippi State, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, defending champion Sam Houston State, Stephen F. Austin, UT-San Antonio, Texas Tech, Texas State and Wichita State.

Oak Hills, a par-71, 6,765-yard course, has played host to 24 PGA Tour events and is the current host of the Senior PGA Tour SBC Championship.

Mickelson adds Riviera to collection of West Coast wins

LOS ANGELES (Map, News) - Phil Mickelson had played 10 tournaments at Riviera dating to his first appearance 20 years ago as a teenager. Never before had he arrived with such good vibes, mostly because of a minor change that he didn't reveal until he won.

It wasn't his close call last year, when he bogeyed the final hole and lost in a playoff.

Nor was it the playoff loss two weeks ago in Phoenix, a sign that his game was on the right track.

Rather, it was a noise only Lefty could hear.

He switched golf balls this year to a softer cover for more spin, and figured he had made all the adjustments until he struggled with his speed on the greens at Pebble Beach last week, which held him back. That's when he decided to change the insert in his putter.

"When I had putted with the insert I had, it was a quieter sound when the ball was coming off and I couldn't hear it, and I was giving it a little too much," Mickelson said. "Consequently, my speed was going well by the hole. By putting in the firmer insert, I was able to hear it, and my speed and touch came back.

"Now I hear it and it feels great."

The putter was key for Mickelson, who closed with a 1-under 70 for a two-shot victory over Jeff Quinney that gave him yet another PGA Tour title on the Left Coast.

He now has 33 career victories, with 16 of them in California and Arizona.

But as much as the putter helped Mickelson, it went from a magic wand to a ball-and-chain for Quinney.

He made four straight putts, three of them for birdie, from outside 10 feet that took him from a two-shot deficit to a brief lead and ultimately to a duel alone the final seven holes. But Quinney again had trouble down the stretch.

He bogeyed three straight holes, starting with back-to-back par putts that he missed from 7 feet, that gave Mickelson a two-shot lead and some comfort as he played the final holes. Quinney lost all hope with a three-putt from 20 feet on the par-5 17th, and his 25-foot birdie on the final hole only made it look close.

He shot a 71 for his first runner-up finish in his two years on tour.

"I had two (putts) that I'd like to have back," Quinney said. "I just put a little too much pressure on the putter on the back nine."

Mickelson, meanwhile, was solid throughout the week.

His putting kept momentum in his round of 64 on Friday to seize control, and in his 70 on Saturday to stay in the lead. And after a two-shot swing that gave Quinney the lead on the ninth hole Sunday - Quinney made a 12-foot birdie, Mickelson missed the green well to the right and made bogey - Lefty responded with clutch putts.

The first came at the 310-yard 10th hole, where Mickelson hit driver over the green and a flop shot to the skinny part of the green, the ball stopping 6 feet away. Quinney saved par with a 10-foot putt, and Mickelson made his on top of him to tie for the lead.

Mickelson pulled away when Quinney made the first of three straight bogeys, and the tournament turned on the par-3 14th.

Quinney went over the green and chipped 7 feet by the hole. Mickelson hit into a bunker and blasted out to the same distance, a few inches farther away. That meant he went first, and Mickelson poured it in for par.

Quinney missed his, the lead was two shots, the tournament effectively over.

Mickelson didn't make it a clean sweep of the West Coast Swing. He has never won in Hawaii, and only goes to Hawaii on vacation. He has never won the Accenture Match Play Championship, although he gets another shot starting Wednesday.

But he has won at every stop on the West Coast, from the ocean courses of Torrey Pines and Pebble Beach to soggy La Costa Resort to the desert tracks in Phoenix, Palm Springs and Tucson.

"I do enjoy the West Coast," Mickelson said. "I'm excited to play golf and I practice very hard on the West Coast when the season is coming around and I haven't played for awhile, I've got a lot of energy and I'm excited to get back out. I think all of these things, plus the fact that I grew up here and used to walk these fairways on the outside, I just have a great love for the West Coast.

"I've been fortunate to play well here."

It should be no surprise that Riviera took so long.

Until last year, Mickelson had missed the cut four out of eight times, including the 1995 PGA Championship. He loved the look of Riviera, but was confounded by the sticky kikuya grass that could grab the ball as it was approaching the green.

There's an art to his course off Sunset Boulevard, and he was a slow learner.

"I didn't understand the nuances of this golf course, where you can and can't hit it," he said. "And learning those nuances and how to hit the shots into some of these greens has helped me over the years. Last year was when I started to put it together, and I'm fortunate to break through this year."

Sweeter still is having his name on the roll call of a champions, a list that includes Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson and Sam Snead. And it's a list that doesn't include Tiger Woods, or even Jack Nicklaus.

And now that another victory is in the bag, he's hungry for more.

"It's not quite to where I believe I can get it, but I feel like it's been much better than in the past, so I feel like I'm getting better," Mickelson said of his game. "I can taste where I want to get to. But I'm not quite there yet."

Hock Takes Playoff; Wins Back-To-Back On Champions Tour

Naples, FL (AHN) - Scott Hoch made an eight-foot birdie putt on No.18 to force a four-hole playoff, then rolled in another eight-footer on the first playoff hole to win The ACE Group Classic for his second straight Champions Tour victory on Sunday.
The 52-year-old Hoch picked up the top prize of $240,000 a week after winning the Allianze Championship in Boca Raton. He now has three Senior titles. He won 11 times over a 25-year PGA career.

Hoch, Tom Jenkins, Tom Kite and Brad Bryant all finished regulation at 14-under par 202. Jenkins, Kite and Bryant had all made pars on No. 18 before Hoch made his birdie.
On the playoff hole, Jenkins and Kite both missed chip shots after going over the green. Bryant lipped out a birdie putt.
Said Hoch, "I just said, 'Let's end it here. I don't want to play anymore. Anything else could happen."

Best West Virginia Golf Courses

Rank	Golf Course	Location
1	Sleepy Hollow Golf & Country Club - Sleepy Hollow Course	Charles Town, WV
2	Berry Hills Country Club - Berry Hills Course	Charleston, WV
3	Little Creek Country Club - Little Creek Course	South Charleston, WV
4	The Brier Patch Golf Links, LLC - Brier Patch Course	Beckley, WV
5	Pete Dye Golf Club - Pete Dye Course	Bridgeport, WV
6	Locust Hill Golf Course - Locust Hill Course	Charles Town, WV
7	Scarlet Oaks Country Club - Scarlet Oaks Course	Poca, WV
8	Cacapon State Park Resort - Cacapon Course	Berkeley Springs, WV
9	Highland Springs Golf Course - Highland Springs Course	Wellsburg, WV
10	Golf Club of West Virginia - West Virginia Course	Waverly, WV
11	Grandview Country Club - Grandview Course	Beaver, WV
12	Mountaineer Golf & Country Club - Mountaineer Course	Morgantown, WV
13	The Pines Country Club - Pines Course	Morgantown, WV
14	Parkersburg Country Club - Parkersburg Course	Vienna, WV
15	Twisted Gun Golf Course - Twisted Gun Course	Wharncliffe, WV
16	Twin Silos At Lavalette - Lavalette Course	Lavalette, WV
17	Stonebridge Golf Club - Stonebridge Course	Martinsburg, WV
18	The Greenbrier Resort - Greenbrier Course	White Sulphur Springs, WV
19	The Resort At Glade Springs - Stonehaven Course	Daniels, WV
20	Coonskin Park Golf Course - Coonskin Park Course	Charleston, WV
21	Lakeview Golf Resort and Spa - Mountainview Course	Morgantown, WV
22	Sugarwood Golf Club - Sugarwood Course	Lavalette, WV
23	The Esquire Country Club - Esquire Course	Barboursville, WV
24	Williams Country Club - Williams Course	Weirton, WV
25	The Woods Resort - Mountain View Course	Hedgesville, WV