HALF A MILLION dollars will be on the line Friday at Peninsula Golf Club in Port Angeles.
No, notorious golf course gambler Michael Jordan isn’t jetting in for a little Nassau betting game with his buddies while seeing the sights on the North Olympic Peninsula.
Instead, qualifiers from the past month’s $500,000 Hole-in-One Challenge will literally get one shot at a nice payday.
Qualifiers will take their shot from a temporary tee box set up 150 yards from the 18th green at about 5 p.m.
The hitting order will be drawn at random, with the cash prize going to the first person hitting the shot.
The remaining contestants will then be encouraged to continue hitting with the second hole in one receiving a new car provided by Wilder Auto Center.
If nobody hits it in, the six competitors closest to the hole will win smaller prizes.
Should no one achieve a hole in one during the final event, prizes will be awarded to the six people who were closest to the pin during the final competition.
The event serves as a fundraiser for the Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce and the Olympic Medical Center Foundation
7 Cedars Casino, Elwha River Casino, MV Coho ferry and First Federal have put up the cash for the potential winner.
For more information, call Russ Veenema at 360-452-2363 (ext. 13) or e-mail russ@portangeles.org.
Big Blue benefit
The Chimacum Big Blue Booster Club will hold its Penny Creek Invitational at Port TownsendSSRqs Discovery Bay Golf Club on Saturday.
Proceeds benefit Cowboys athletics.
The four-person scramble begins with registration at noon. Play kicks off at 1 p.m.
Cost is $100 per person with greens fee, a boxed lunch and a dinner-and-drinks coupon thrown in.
The event will include a long-drive competition, KP’s, team prizes, raffle prizes, mulligans and “buy-a-drive.”
For more information, call Sabrina Hathaway at 360-437-9653 or 360-531-0461, or e-mail hathaway@cablespeed.com.
A chance at Vegas
SkyRidge Golf Course in Sequim will hold a three-person scramble tournament on Saturday, Sept. 18.
Fees are $120 per three-person team.
This includes greens fee, lunch, kp’s and a team long-putt competition.
The fun gets underway at 9 a.m. for the first 22 teams that sign up.
All tournament participants will be entered in a drawing for a three-day, two-night stay in Las Vegas with a two-for-one flight coupon.
Call SkyRidge at 360-683-3673 or stop by the course to get in the game.
Farris news
I’ve got a line out to Crescent High School grad Tommy Farris for an upcoming column piece.
Farris interned as a summer business operations manager for The Boeing Classic.
He wrote back promptly and quite professionally last week, and told me he had some work to finish up before he could get to my questions.
I’ll have some details on just what he was up to all summer and what goes on behind the scenes in planning for a tournament like The Boeing Classic.
Ryder Cup squads
The American and European teams for the upcoming 2010 Ryder Cup were announced on Tuesday.
Delivering the announcement at the New York Stock Exchange, U.S. Captain Corey Pavin selected Tiger Woods as a special “captain’s pick.”
It’s the sixth selection for Woods, but the first time that he didn’t finish first in qualifying for the event.
Other captain’s picks included Stewart Cink, Zach Johnson and Rickie Fowler.
They join the eight Americans whose performance during the season qualified them for the team.
The players include Phil Mickelson, Hunter Mahan, Steve Stricker, Jim Furyk, Matt Kuchar, Bubba Watson, Dustin Johnson and Jeff Overton.
Watson, Fowler, Kuchar, Johnson and Overton are all Ryder Cup rookies.
On the European side, Captain Colin Montgomerie went for even more youth, selecting six Ryder Cup rookies — Rory “Tin Cup” McIlroy, Ross Fisher, 2010 PGA champion Martin Kaymer, Peter Hanson and Italian brothers Edoardo and Francesco Molinari.
The rookies join Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter, Padraig Harrington, Luke Donald, Miguel Angel Jimenez and U.S. Open champion Graeme McDowell on the team.
Montgomerie apparently doesn’t read my column and missed my note suggesting he add steely veteran Bernhard Langer to the team.
The U.S. team hasn’t won overseas since 1993.
If our guys take the title at Celtic Manor in Wales on Oct. 1-3, I’m blaming it on Montgomerie’s snub of Langer.
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Michael Carman is the golf columnist for the Peninsula Daily News. He can be reached at 360-417-3527 or at pdngolf@gmail.com.
