Area pros hoping tourney can reclaim lost glory

Mark Gardner remembers waking up, as a young boy, and reading about the Spokane Area Amateur golf tournament.

“It would be on the front page of The Spokesman-Review,” recalled Gardner, now the head professional at The Creek at Qualchan Golf Course. “(Former S-R sports editor) Harry Missildine would be there; they’d have pictures. It was a big deal. Back then, that was the tournament to play in.”

And now Gardner, along with the head professionals at Spokane’s three other city-owned courses, are trying to re-establish the event – known today as the Spokane City Championship – as the region’s premier amateur tournament.

“The idea came from the golf department of the Parks and Recreation Department,” Gardner explained. “Their wish was to get a true city championship going again.”

The big push began last year, but only 60 competitors entered the 54-hole event, which is played on a different city course each day. Gardner expects 80 for this year’s tournament, which will play out Friday, Saturday and Sunday at Indian Canyon, Downriver and Qualchan.

“We’ve already got people entered from northern California, Canada and the Portland and Seattle areas,” Gardner said, “so the field should be larger and even more competitive than last year.”

Entry forms for this year’s tournament are available at all area courses, and Gardner said golfers can still enter over the telephone by calling The Creek at Qualchan Golf Course at 448-9317.

The entry fee is $150 and includes greens fees, tee prizes worth close to $70, dinner and music on the patio at Downriver Golf Course following Saturday’s second round and an awards ceremony following Sunday’s final round at Qualchan.

All four of the city’s head professionals – Gardner, Downriver’s Steve Conner, Esmeralda’s Rex Schultz and Indian Canyon’s Gary Lindeblad – are expected to be on hand for all three rounds of the tournament.

And for the second year in a row, a trophy thought to be the original prize presented to Irving Cornell when he won what was then called the Spokane Municipal Championship back in 1943 will be on display.

Pam McKinzie, the city’s Golf Program Supervisor and a member of the tournament’s organizing committee, has the trophy in her office and said it represents only the infancy of the rich history surrounding the event.

Along with Cornell, the trophy contains the names of former champions Lou Cook (1944), Bill Welch (1945), Mark Sullivan (1947) and Al Gustafson (1948-49).

Through the years, the tournament has undergone name and format changes, and was even mothballed for a long period time.

“But it was obviously a huge event in the past,” McKinzie said, “and our intent is to grow it back to the level of its glory days when it was the class tournament in the whole area and one that everybody wanted to play in.”

Gardner, who won the event in 1977, envisions a day when the field could reach 300 and all four city courses would be involved in hosting play in several different divisions.

“You might have a senior division playing Ezzy, Downriver and the Canyon, for instance,” he explained, “and a regular division playing the Canyon, Downriver and Qualchan. You could even have the ladies playing another set of courses, and maybe even a junior division.

“We’re really trying to make it into something big again.”