It will be amateur (half) hour

There will be a new fit, feel and finish to most of our region’s top amateur golf tournaments this summer, thanks to the considerable efforts of Tom Stebbins and George Kessler.

The two have formed Vision Golf, a division of Vision Marketing, and have partnered with local businesses and public courses throughout the area to create and produce the season-long Toyota Series of Golf, which will culminate with the Sterling Savings Bank Shootout at Stoneridge Golf Course in Blanchard, Idaho, on Oct. 3.

According to Stebbins, the president of Vision Marketing and promoter of the annual Spokane Golf Show, the Toyota Series of Golf is designed to not only grow the number of rounds being played locally, but to provide new opportunities for businesses to associate with the golf audience.

“Golf is just so fractured,” Stebbins explained. “Certainly, the PGA is organized, but that’s a whole different level. Locally, it’s not that way at all. So, our goal is to bring more focus to the industry, create greater awareness of golf in our community and ultimately assist in the growth of the sport.”

As part of the Toyota Series of Golf, four flight winners or top finishers from 11 different amateur events will qualify for the season-ending shootout, which will be taped and then edited into a 30-minute telecast that will air later this fall on KXLY-TV.

The local tournaments that have signed on to become part of the series include the Snake River, Kootenai County, Esmeralda, Hangman Valley, Liberty Lake, Dominion Meadows, Prairie Falls, Deer Park, Sun Dance, MeadowWood and Spokane amateurs.

The events are open to anyone with a USGA handicap, and the two that have been contested thus far – the Snake River Amateur in Lewiston and the Kootenai County Amateur in Coeur d’Alene – have drawn praise from competitors, who seem delighted by everything from the more professional look and feel of the tournaments, to the added prize money and a chance to earn one of the 44 berths in the Sterling Savings Bank Shootout.

“I think it’s really a neat opportunity,” said Coeur d’Alene resident Lonnie Pitt, who qualified for the shootout by posting the low net score in the second flight of last weekend’s Kootenai County Amateur at the Coeur d’Alene Golf Club. “I was more excited about making the shootout and getting the chance to be on TV than winning the $250 gift certificate.

“I think it’ll be a lot of fun, and I’m encouraging all my friends to get out and enter these tournaments.”

Kessler, an avid golfer who has played in each of the first two events in the series, said the feedback has been everything he hoped it would be.

“From the scoreboard to the signage to adding money to the purses, anything we can do to enhance the tournament experience for everyone involved, that’s what we’re trying to do,” he said. “We want to make our local events feel better and more exciting. And so far the response from both the pros, on the marketing of the events, and the players, on the feel of the events, have been extremely positive.”

Under the rules of the series, golfers with the low gross score in the championship flights and the low net score in the championship, first and second flights of each tournament will qualify for the season-ending shootout. But since competitors can qualify only once, there might be some instances in which a second-, third- or fourth-place finisher could make the 44-player shootout field.

“It’s kind of our goal with all of this,” Kessler explained, “to simply get more people excited about golf – get them to join a men’s club, play in more competitive events and enjoy it.”

Both Kessler and Stebbins admit, however, that their plan is still in its infancy. In this inaugural year of the series, only flight winners from the men’s division will qualify for the shootout, the format and prize money of which is still being formulated.

“We hope to add a women’s element down the road, but you have to walk before you run,” Stebbins said. “This is just a starting point in the bigger scheme of things.”

“We have growing pains and a learning curve to deal with, as well,” added Kessler. “We’re constantly taking feedback, and each week our checklist gets a little shorter.

“For anybody who doubted us, I think by the end of the year they’ll be saying, ‘You did well. This worked out.’ And if we can raise the profile of amateur golf in area, great.”