Teams share first in McGhee finale
By By Will Bardwell / staff writer
July 26, 2004
Johnny Grace and his teammates had already played their 36th hole in two days under the hot July sun. They weren't about to play more in the pouring rain.
A fast-moving rainstorm slammed into Briarwood Country Club just moments after play ended at the Buddy McGhee Six-Person Scramble, forcing the two leading teams to settle for a tie rather than a playoff.
Grace and his teammates Bill Kimbrell, Walter Hurst, Jack Douglas, Johnny Boykin and Jerald Earley followed up Saturday's low round of 52 with a final-round 54 for a share of the tournament championship.
The team of Grady Hinson, Ron Grantham, Larry Williams, George Polizzi, Dan Stegall and Danny Pressley, which began the day three strokes behind the leaders, stormed back on Sunday with a 51 tying the team for low round of the tournament.
Winners of the four flights received $900 per team, while second-place finishers won $750 and third-place teams earned $600. The 12 members of the two winning teams agreed to split the combined $1,650 a still-respectable $137.50 apiece.
After bolting to the top of the leaderboard on Saturday with 16 birdies and two eagles, the team of Grace, Kimbrell, Hurst, Douglas, Boykin and Earley stayed hot on Sunday with eight birdies and an eagle on the front nine, then tallying another birdie on No. 10.
The team's only par of the weekend came on the 367-yard No. 11 hole.
Hinson, Grantham, Williams, Polizzi, Stegall and Pressley also settled for just one par on Sunday on the 410-yard, par-4 No. 9 hole but their four eagles and and 13 birdies more than made up for it.
In the first flight, Wade Parker got his team off to a fast start with a hole in one on the 154-yard 16th. Since his team began the day on No. 16, it was Parker's first shot of the round.
Al Brown, who played on Parker's team, was not as humble as his teammate.
Parker and his teammates finished with a 57 on Sunday for a two-day 115, tying them for fifth in the flight.
Nearly 240 golfers on 39 teams competed in the two-day tournament, which is Briarwood's largest tournament of the year.
