Wayne County Post 11 held its inaugural golf tournament on Friday afternoon at Southern Wayne Country Club.
Organized by Wayne County Post 11 coaches Adam Pate and Colton Chrisman, the tournament was created to help raise community involvement and support for the Wayne County Post 11 baseball program.
Pate said organizing the tournament was an arduous task, and he could not have done it without the help of Chisman, Southern Wayne Country Club’s Kyle Best, and the rest of the staff at Southern Wayne Country Club.
“A lot of it was out of my league. I’m not a golfer or at least someone who knows enough about it to run a tournament like this,” Pate said. “So, I’d love to send a thank you to coach Chrisman, Kyle Best, and everybody at Southern Wayne Country Club that helped leading up to the tournament and especially during the tournament.
“Those guys were a huge help to our program, and I can’t thank them enough.
People from all over Wayne County came out to support Wayne County Post 11, and a number of current and former Post 11 players participated in the tournament.
Several local businesses also helped support Post 11 by becoming tournament sponsors.
“It was really cool to see a good amount of our players helping out and playing, and getting to enjoy some golf, so that was really cool,” Pate said. “I’m not from the southern end of the county, but it was cooling meeting a lot of people who are big supporters of us that I really didn’t know.”
“The community support was really good to see.”
The 18-hole tournament featured 18 foursomes, and prizes were awarded to first, second, third, and even last place. A longest drive and closest to the pin contests also took place.
Pate, David Flowers, Randy Wilhide, and Tanner Wilman compiled a four-player total of 54 to claim first place. The quartet of Chrisman, Best, Sam Ferrell, and Craig Lane finished runner-up, while Tony Winstead, Tom Morgan, Prentice Herring, and Roy Porter claimed third place.
At the end of a hot but beautiful day of playing golf, Pate said the tournament was successful, and he is already looking forward to next year’s tournament and continuing to raise more support for Wayne County Post 11.
“We were able to raise some money for our program, to better our program going forward, and do some cool things,” Pate said. “But at the same time, the more community support we can get is the best because there are a lot of teams in the western part of the state, in South Carolina, and in other states that have huge fanbases, and that’s ultimately what we’d love to do.
“We want to continue to grow our program and have people support us.”
