Texas Golf Association: Odessa brings unprecedented tourney to town

For the first time in more than a decade, the eyes of amateur golf in the state of Texas are solely fixed on the Permian Basin.

Cities in West Texas rarely get an opportunity like this one.

But Odessa has a chance to put its best foot forward this weekend. The 2010 Texas Golf Association Senior Amateur Championships begins at 7:45 a.m. today on the Links Course at Odessa Country Club.

“It’s a statewide event,” Odessa golfer Marshall Morgan said. “It’s pretty uncommon to hold a statewide event out here.”

Bringing an amateur state championship to Odessa is almost as rare as a scientifically documented jackalope sighting. A state amateur championship — at any level — has been never been held in Odessa, according to Odessa Country Club general manager Ryan George.

“This will be the only one,” said TGA president Mickey Jones, an Odessa native. “Between the beautiful courses they have in Dallas, in Austin, San Antonio, Houston, they usually end up going there.”

According to Jones, Odessa Country Club put in its bid to host a state amateur championship five years ago, long before the first-year president took office.

But the rest of the Odessa golfing community is pretty sure Jones’s influence with the TGA helped bring the Texas Senior Amateur to Odessa.

“We have consistently maintained our club in good standing in order that maybe we could get a senior tournament out here,” Morgan said. “I think Mickey had a little pull, but as far as the golf course goes, we have a jewel in the desert out here.”

Odessa Country Club originally planned to hold the TGA Senior Amateur on the tree-lined Old Course, but club officials had to call an audible because of some problems with the greens on the Old Course this summer, Morgan and Jones said.

 Under normal circumstances, the Links Course plays to the strength of players with big swings, but simply blasting the ball out onto the grass isn’t going to get it done this weekend.

Like the Old Course, the key is going to be to keep the ball in the fairway.

A rainy summer — though not in the last month — has given the Links Course a few extra teeth to trap errant tee shots.

“The Links Course doesn’t have the trees, although the rough is high because of the rains, but the fairways are a little bit wider,” Jones said.

No matter the course, a golfer is going to have to be at the top of his game to beat the 132-man field, which won’t get cut until after Saturday’s second round.

But these seniors are plenty familiar with the competition.

Most of them have been playing against each other for years. Back in the late 1970s, Steve Thompson, an Odessa native who is serving on the tournament committee along with Jones and Morgan, spent his summers playing partner best-ball tournaments in South and East Texas.

Most of his opponents from those days will tee off at the Odessa Country Club at some point today.

“I get to see a bunch of guys I don’t get to see very often,” Thompson said. “Being in these individual tournaments, it’s kind of like everybody’s moved to the next level. We haven’t had them out here yet.”

And now it’s up to the Odessa Country Club to show these golfers a good time.