By Barbara Palmgren
Once upon a time, professional golfers like Bubba Watson, Boo Weekley and Heath Slocum, three local golf legends, played golf on the Emerald Coast Golf Tour. Why? Because play with the PGA Tour, the Korn Ferry Tour or the Champions Tour, often begins with competition in this venue where skill and patience is tested—and money awarded!
Geno Celano, Tour Director for the Emerald Coast Golf Tour, spoke with me at length at a recent tournament held at Shalimar Pointe Golf Course. This regional tournament in several southern states is indeed a training ground for the professional golfer. Geno has been doing this for more than 35 years and shares that his reward is seeing golfers successful at the next level of play and knowing he had a small part in their journey to success on the links. The Emerald Coast tour has included more than 30 PGA Tour winners who have competed on the Emerald Coast Golf Tour.
Entry fees are high and golfers look for sponsors to help with costs. Often, a Pro Am day is scheduled so amateurs can play with these professional hopefuls. Geno schedules at least one and often two tournaments a month with the exception of December.
At Shalimar Pointe Golf Course in February, the 36-hole event included a one-day Pro Am that was played on a cold Sunday with windy conditions. Conditions did not improve for the pros the next day and one could see golfers with jackets and winter hats teeing up golf shots. When competition began, the temperature was 40 degrees with an 18-mile-an-hour north wind. Yes, you guessed it—a wind chill of 32 degrees for an unusually cold day in February in the Florida Panhandle!
On the first day of play, Kyle Sapp from Gardendale, Ala., shot a hole- in-one on Hole 11. The odds of hitting a hole-in-one are estimated to be 1 in 12,500. On the second day, to add to the excitement, two golfers tied for first place with a two-day score of 144. So, a sudden death playoff was played immediately. Braving wind and cold, we saw Thomas Ponder from Hendersonville, Tenn., winning the tournament with a birdie on the first playoff hole. Jacob Sherline from Dothan, Ala., took second place as a result.
With a field of golfers from as far as Texas and Louisiana, these young men can be proud of their achievements today at Shalimar Pointe Golf Course, where “everyone is treated like a champion.”
