Posted online: May 29, 2004 12:52 AM
Print publication date: May 26, 2004

JDC's disassociation with QC Am hurting numbers

To say the Quad-City Amateur golf tournament isn't what it used to be may be a huge understatement -- especially this year. And that's not necessarily a good thing.

The biggest event on the summer amateur golf scene swings into action today with Brian Soucinek defending his championship flight title. But it won't be the same QC Am we've seen recently even though champs will still be determined in championship, women, seniors, super seniors and open flights. Championship flight golfers play today at Glynns Creek and Sunday at Emeis. Women, seniors and super-seniors flip-flop that rotation. Open flight players play at Palmer Hills today and at Clinton's Valley Oaks on Sunday.

This tournament had been played over two weekends with the survivor of the championship flight earning a sponsor's exemption into the PGA Tour's John Deere Classic. But with the exemption not being on the table as of last season, the Am is down to two rounds this year and just one weekend.

Soucinek was the first player to miss out on the JDC sponsor's exemption that had been offered to the three-, then four-round survivor. But after having the spot into the 156-man professional field taken away, it seems as if something else taken away has hurt the Am's numbers more than anything.

Ron Thrap, head professional at Davenport's Emeis Golf Course and the tournament director, reports that fewer than 200 players will be in this weekend's field -- about a third the size of last year and down from 500-plus not long ago. He says the numbers are as good as ever in the flights associated with the National City Bank Amateur Tour -- championship, senior and super-senior -- along with the women, which has drawn at least 15 players this year. The big drop-off, though, is in the men's open division.

Thrap thinks there are two major factors with why those numbers have fallen off on the traditional Memorial Day weekend tourney.

``We lost a lot of publicity and the tickets to the John Deere Classic,'' he said.

In the past, when the Am was affiliated with the JDC, anyone entering the tourney received a complimentary daily admission into the PGA event at TPC at Deere Run in the form of a JDC baseball hat. That formula, though, was no longer viable, according to JDC tournament director Clair Peterson.

``We raised the purse $300,000 (to $3.8 million), our expenses have gone up five percent across the board and we need to generate revenue anyway we can to remain on a level playing field with other tournaments,'' Peterson said. ``Giving stuff away is hard to do for us. ... We think most of the people who play golf are fans and will find their way out to the tournament.''

Instead, the Classic has donated 20 tickets and 10 parking passes to be raffled off to this weekend's Am players.

``We really couldn't justify giving every participant a ticket since we're no longer affiliated by name,'' Peterson said. ``This way, people still have a chance to win something.''

But Thrap is worried that there aren't enough people playing for the flight prizes.

``Our strong desire is to involve everyone in the golf community and not just the championship players,'' Thrap said. ``That's one of our main concerns is to get people involved.''

With this being the first year of it being a two-day event, he's waiting for feedback as to whether shortening the tourney helped or hurt the numbers.

``We were trying that to see if it would help participation; a lot of people talked about how it was difficult to get two weekends off away from whatever they were involved with to be involved in the tournament. We thought we'd try the one-weekender to try to help them out.''

Like the NCB Am Tour itself, Thrap figures the QC Am will have to undergo tweaking in the upcoming years to find the right format to make it the best event possible.

``We could very easily go back to three days to see if that would help or hurt further,'' said Thrap. ``The thing we need to do is try to get more community involvement.''

Tom Johnston welcomes your comments at (309) 757-4969 or tjohnston@qconline.com.