34 teams made the trip down to Tunica, Mississippi for the Inaugural Season Opening Fourball Event at Tunica National Golf & Tennis.  The event was co-hosted by the Nashville and St. Louis tours on March 25th-26th.  Players from 7 different tours were represented (St. Louis, Nashville, Chicago, Memphis, Birmingham, Arkansas, and Philadelphia Metro) to round out the field.  Flights were modified for this team event, including a net competition for C flight. 

Saturday brought extremely windy conditions, with players having to battle 25-30 mph sustained winds with gusts around 45mph.  Partners were working hard to make pars all day in the very windy conditions.  Sunday brought a beautiful day for golf, with birdies to be made on the difficult track of Tunica National.

Champ Flight - Starsky & Thompson

In the Championship flight, Ben Starsky and Kyle Thompson (Arkansas) were able to hold off a second day charge from Justin Graveman and Patrick Crane (Birmingham) to earn a one-shot victory at 1-under par 143.  Graveman/Crane fired the round of the day (69) to finish one shot behind in second place.

A Flight - Ridgeway & Holland

In the A flight, Kyle Ridgeway and Matt Holland (St. Louis) jumped out to a two shot lead Saturday over Karen Ford/Mo Sheehan (Chicago) and Gary Saliba/Jonathan Saliba (Nashville) with a round of 74.  Paired in the final group with Ridgeway/Holland on Sunday, the duo of Ford/Sheehan put up a valiant effort distancing themselves from the field with an even-par 72, but eventually fell short to Ridgeway/Holland who matched their 72 with a 72 of their own to earn a 2-shot victory.

B Flight - Cason & Rauschenberger

In the B flight, the duo of Mike Cason/Garth Rauschenberger (St. Louis) used a hot start to earn a tie for the lead after Saturday’s play with Jeremy Arnold/Anthony Murdock (Memphis).  Cason/Rauschenberger were able to hold off a strong Sunday charge from Larry Mikeska (Chicago) and Luke Andros (St. Louis), who shot a 74 to earn second place honors.  Mike Cason/Garth Rauschenberger shot a second-day 75 to earn a two-shot victory with a total of 153.

C Flight -Anderson & Suhr

In the C flight, the weekend belonged to Willie Anderson/Daniel Suhr (St. Louis).  After firing an impressive 65 on Saturday in difficult conditions, the duo backed it up with a more impressive 60 on Sunday to earn a 3 shot victory.  5 teams were within 4 shots of the lead heading into Sunday, and 3 of those teams shot 60 in one of the most competitive flights.  Jeff Brodsky/Dave Neder (Philadelphia) fired a Sunday 69 to finish in 4th place with St. Louis’ Steve Minder/Mike Scalera shot 60 to finish in 3rd.  Tim Mayer/Art Lopez (St. Louis) shot a Sunday 60 to put pressure on the leaders, but weren’t able to make up any ground and finished in 2nd with a 2-day total of 128.