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Volunteers backbone of tourney

By Dennis Grall

For the Daily Press

HARRIS — Volunteers provide a monumental assist to a successful Symetra Tour golf tournament.

“They want to be involved in a very unique event,” Delta County Chamber of Commerce director Vickie Micheau told golfers at Wednesday’s pro-am dinner at the Island Resort Championship at Sweetgrass.

She said over the seven years of this event, there have been 1,870 volunteers handling a wide variety of assignments. They have eaten 5,600 hamburgers and hot dogs and 2,269 donuts.

There have been 1,800 competitive rounds of golf during each three-day tournament, in addition to two pro-ams each year in which some volunteers also assist.

Micheau said it has totaled 25,232 work hours.

“We have great volunteers,” tourney co-chairman Tony Mancilla told the audience.

Mancilla also provided an update on the new Sage Run Golf Course, which is under construction on the 400 road eight miles northwest of Island Resort and Casino.

“It is 180 degrees different than Sweetgrass,” he said, noting award-winning golf course architect Paul Albanese is in charge of the new course after building Sweetgrass, one of the most challenging courses on the tour.

“The topography is so different. They couldn’t be the same course,” he said, with Sweetgrass a wind-swept links course with little elevation change while Sage Run is tree-lined and built off a drumlin, a glacial ridge that rises as much as 200 feet.

“The short holes are uphill, the longer holes are downhill,” said Mancilla. “This new course will be spectacular.”

Mancilla announced the new course will open June 14, 2018, and that the Symetra tourney sponsors will be provided an opportunity to play the new course in September as part of a soft opening.

For golf fans who watched the recent U.S Open, they saw that Erin Hills Golf Course is similar to Sweetgrass. Actually, you could say Erin Hills is Sweetgrass on giant steroids.

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