Chicopee Woods to host first event of season
By Mike Blum
Following some schedule changes, the Georgia PGA’s 2011 tournament season gets off to a later-than-usual start, with its first two multi-round events set for this month.
The fourth Chicopee Woods Players Championship is the first individual tournament on this year’s schedule, and will be played May 16-17 in Gainesville. The following week, Newnan Country Club will host the Georgia Senior Open May 23-24.
The Chicopee Woods event has proven to be a popular early-season tournament for the state’s club professionals, consisting of 54 holes over two days on Chicopee Woods’ 27-hole layout.
The tournament has enjoyed down-to-the-wire finishes all three times in which it has been contested, beginning in 2008 when Jeff Hull needed a playoff to prevail over Russ Davis.
Hull contended again the next year, but placed third, two strokes behind Seth McCain, who edged out Sonny Skinner by one shot to take his first Georgia PGA title. Tim Weinhart, a 5-time Georgia PGA Player of the Year, out-dueled Craig Stevens in last year’s tournament, chipping in for birdie on the 53rd hole to break a tie and score a one-stroke victory.
The Chicopee Woods Players Championship, which is sponsored by TaylorMade and adidas Golf, begins a busy stretch of tournament golf for Georgia PGA members. The Yamaha Atlanta Open follows next month, with the Championship at Berkeley Hills and Georgia Open in July, the Section Championship in August and several events set for the Fall.
The Atlanta Open will be played June 13-14 at The Frog, with four qualifiers scheduled between June 2 and 7. The event is open to Georgia PGA members and apprentices as well as amateurs, with the entry deadline May 27.
The unique format for the Chicopee Woods events produces some interesting scores after the first day of play, with Hull accomplishing the odd feat of breaking 100 in the opening round in 2008, shooting 9-under 99 before finishing at 13-under 203 to tie Davis.
McCain shot a tournament-best 15-under 201 to win in 2009, with Weinhart’s winning score last year 204. Chicopee Woods’ three nines are comparable in both length and difficulty, with the Village nine, the front nine on the original 18, the longest of the three and rated the most difficult of the trio.
Weinhart, Hull and Skinner have been among the leaders in each of the three tournaments played at Chicopee Woods, with all three among the top five finishers every year in the event’s brief history.
Hull, an instructor at the UGA course in Athens, has finished first, third and fifth, matching his winning 13-under 203 total the next year and finishing at 211 in last year’s tournament.
Weinhart, an instructor with Nuclear Golf, which is now based at the Standard Club, has been a consistent performer at Chicopee Woods, posting 54-hole totals of 204, 206 and 204. He was a close third in 2008 and fifth the next year before notching his victory in 2010.
Skinner, who teaches at River Pointe in Albany and has limited status on the Champions Tour, has come close every year, placing fourth in ’08 (two strokes out of the playoff), second the next year (just one behind McCain) and was third last year. He is 33-under in his three tournament appearances at Chicopee Woods.
Sanchez shoots for third straight Senior title (separate headline)
Javier Sanchez has won the Yamaha Georgia Senior Open each of the last two years, but if the veteran tour player is going to make it a three-peat, he will have to do it at a new venue with the possibility of a much stronger group of contenders.
Sanchez, a long time Fayetteville resident, claimed both his Georgia Senior Open titles at Callaway Gardens, but this year’s event has been moved to Newnan Country Club, which has hosted an annual Seniors Division event in recent years, as well as the Yamaha Atlanta Open in 2008.
Among the potential entrants who have turned 50 in the past year are Georgia PGA members Sonny Skinner, Craig Stevens and Stephen Keppler. Skinner and Stevens have limited status on the Champions Tour this year, with Skinner making it into a tournament from a Monday qualifier earlier this year.
Sanchez coasted to a five-stroke victory in the 2009 Georgia Senior Open, the first one he was eligible to compete in, but had a much tougher time last year, needing back-to-back hole-outs on the back nine at Callaway Gardens’ Mountain View course, the former host of a PGA Tour event for more than a decade.
After shooting 66 in the opening round, Sanchez shared the lead with amateur Jeff Belk. Sanchez led by three strokes early in the second round, but after 10 holes had lost the lead and was involved in a tight, four-way battle with Belk, fellow amateur Jack Hall, and former tour player Tim Conley.
After hitting his tee shot in the water on the par-3 12th, Sanchez chipped in for par. On the par-4 13th, Sanchez holed out from a greenside bunker for birdie, with his ball making contact with Belk’s ball, which was about a foot from the cup, before being re-directed into the hole.
Sanchez went on to shoot 70 for an 8-under 136 total, two strokes ahead of Conley, who defeated Sanchez in a playoff in a 1996 Nike Tour tournament in St. Louis.
For most of his professional career, Sanchez has been a mini-tour grinder, with his near win in St. Louis part of a two-year stint he spent on the Nike (now Nationwide) Tour.
Sanchez achieved a bit of national attention when he qualified for the U.S. Open four straight times from 1993-1996, making it through both local and sectional qualifying stages all four times. He made a fifth U.S. Open start in 2000, and is 2-for-2 in U.S. Senior Open qualifying since he turned 50, tying for 32nd in the championship last year.
However, after making it into three Champions Tour events in Monday qualifiers in 2009, Sanchez made it into just one last year, and faded into the pack after an opening round 66 in the final full field event of the 2010 season in San Antonio.
Sanchez plays much of his golf on the Sunbelt Senior Tour, which is based in Florida and plays a number of its events in Georgia. Sanchez is a consistent top finisher on the tour, which has small fields and offers modest prize money.