Expanded Classic Begins Attendance May Double For Latest Edition Of Golf Festival

After watching the attendance lag considerably the past two years, Toby Steward decided to beef up Day One of his 2000 Pro Classic and push ticket sales again.

As a result, the organizer of the two-day golf event that opens this morning at The Creek at Qualchan Golf Course, is expecting a near-record crowd for the 7th annual Pro Classic.

“We’ve sold over 5,000 tickets and should more than double the attendance from last year,” Steward said.

The event kicks off this morning at 7 a.m. with the Deaconess Medical Center Junior Pro Classic, featuring 41 of the area’s top junior golfers. Today’s schedule also includes the Guy Hyatt’s Invitational and the MSC Premera Blue Cross Pro-Am, which starts at 9:30, and a 12:30 trick-shot clinic by paraplegic golfer Dennis Walters.

A field of 19 local club professionals will compete for the $8,000 purse in the Guy Hyatt’s Invitational while captaining a team of four amateurs in the pro-am event.

But the featured happening remains the $10,000 Tidyman’s Shootout, which will take place Monday at 8:30 a.m. and feature a field of touring golf professionals and celebrities playing a six-hole, two-person, alternating shot format.

As in past years, the Shootout will start on the 10th hole and progress through Nos. 11, 12, 16, 17 and 18. The latter, Qualchan’s beautiful and difficult finishing hole, will also be the site of a post-Shootout clinic featuring former U.S. Open champion Hale Irwin and PGA Tour star and former Pullman resident Kirk Triplett.