Sanderson Farms Championship: Grateful for the memories if this is the final one | Sports

“So, how far do you go back with the Sanderson Farms Championship?” a pal requested the different day.

The reply was simple: All the means again.

Back to 1968, when it was often called the Magnolia State Classic and was performed at the Hattiesburg Country Club. That’s the place I used to be making a number of bogeys for my highschool golf workforce as a 15-year-old tenth grader.

I caddied in the first spherical of the first Magnolia State Classic. My professional shot 83 that day, knocking the bark off of a number of pine bushes and cussing his means round the stunning, previous course. Red-faced and nonetheless cussing, he slammed his golf equipment into his automobile trunk afterward, and I by no means noticed him once more. He would have needed to shoot 57 in the second spherical to make the reduce, and, belief me, that wasn’t occurring. I confirmed up for the second spherical, and he didn't. Never paid me for the first spherical both.

I watched PGA rookie Mac McClendon, a 22-year-old recent out of LSU, win the first Magnolia, beating 52-year-old Pete Fleming in a nine-hole playoff after they'd already performed 36 holes that day. As McClendon sank the successful putt at nightfall, vehicles had been already streaming out of the car parking zone, all with their lights on.

This week will mark the 57th enjoying of what has turn into the Sanderson Farms Championship. I’ve seen and lined the giant majority of the earlier 56, besides for about 10 years after I assigned myself to go cowl one other little match, the one they name The Masters.

Matter of reality, I've lined Mississippi’s solely PGA Tour match underneath all eight of its totally different names. Here’s the record: The Magnolia State Classic, the Magnolia Classic, the Deposit Guaranty Classic, the Southern Farm Bureau Classic, the Viking Classic, the True South Classic, and, in fact, the Sanderson Farms Championship, which it has been since Joe Sanderson saved the match in 2013.

I lined it in Hattiesburg, at Annandale in Madison and at the Country Club of Jackson. I lined it in April, in May, in July, in September, October and November. I’ve lined it brutal warmth and, rather more usually, in monsoon-ish climate match solely for frogs, fish and geese. At least twice, I've gone to cowl the match for the sports activities division and wound up masking a flood for the information division. Once, at Annandale, we in the media heart narrowly escaped an evil twister.

From its humble beginnings — the whole purse in 1968 was $20,000 — the match has grown into an $8.2 million, full-fledged PGA TOUR occasion. That’s proper: Several caddies will make more money this week than McClendon made in ’68. 

Truth is, I've lined a few of golf’s best gamers earlier than they grew to become family names. I lined Johnny Miller when he was, as they are saying, a can’t-miss prospect straight out of BYU. I lined Tom Watson when he was recent out of Stanford and sported a mustache. Somebody again then instructed me again then I needed to see Watson’s rhythmic golf swing, and so I went to see it. I discovered him on the fifth gap, the most tough at the grand, previous Hattiesburg Country Club course. I used to be standing behind the inexperienced, trying down the fairway, when a golf ball, hit from the left tough, took two huge bounces, rolled about 10 toes and dropped into the cup. There was no roar from the gallery. Hell, I was the gallery. Watson got here bouncing as much as the inexperienced trying throughout for his ball.

“Check the hole,” I instructed him.

He did after which he flashed that gap-toothed smile that will turn into well-known worldwide.

Watson didn’t win in Mississippi and neither did Miller, however Payne Stewart certainly did. That was earlier than he wore knickers. I noticed future Mississippian Jim Gallagher Jr. win it lengthy earlier than he married Cissye and have become a Ryder Cup hero. I noticed the late, nice Chi Chi Rodriguez play in it and totally entertain all who watched him.

I walked the fairways with John Daly, again when he was a thin, chain-smoking rookie simply again in the states from having honed his sport on the South African Tour.

I lined Pro Ams that included the likes of Dizzy Dean, Clint Eastwood, Glen Campbell, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Joe Namath and so many extra. Dizzy Dean beat his professional in the 1970 pro-am, taking solely 73 photographs, practically all of which began far to his left and moved far to his proper.

”How come you slice the ball a lot?” somebody in the gallery hollered at Ol’ Diz.

Dean answered laughing, “Podnuh, if you had to swing around a belly as big as mine, you’d slice it, too.”

He had some extent.

In 1980, Roger Maltbie, a helluva participant and later a well-known golf broadcaster, shot a primary spherical 65, then sat by three days of torrential rains that flooded Hattiesburg. He sat by most of the storms in EJ’s, a bar at the Ramada Inn on Highway 49. That’s the place I discovered him after he was declared the winner on a rain-soaked Sunday.

“How much do I get?” Maltbie requested.

“Five thousand,” I answered.

“Hell,” Maltbie stated, “that’ll barely pay my bar tab.”

It has been extensively reported — precisely, I'm afraid — that this might properly be the final Sanderson Farms Championship, which for so lengthy has been Mississippi’s solely PGA Tour match. That’s a disgrace on many fronts, however largely as a result of the match has donated practically $25 million to Mississippi charities, most for Children’s of Mississippi, which gives medical care for practically 200,000 youngsters a 12 months. If it goes out, it ought to exit with a bang. The climate forecast is excellent. The area is wonderful with such established stars as Matt Kuchar and Rickie Fowler headed this means.

Here’s hoping a brand new sponsor seems out of nowhere — as Joe Sanderson did — and saves the occasion. If not, please permit me to say publicly a few match I've come to understand like an previous pal: Thanks for the memories.