Golfers clamor for tourney
128 people have signed up to be part of July 20 contest
Organizers had to cap the players list at 136 for the Marty Sanchez Links de Santa Fe 20th Anniversary Golf Tournament, which starts July 20.
During the planning stage, a cool 100 sounded nice.
Then someone had the crazy suggestion of maybe 120. Then 128.
This week, the powers that be finally put a stop to the madness and capped the players list for the upcoming Marty Sanchez Links de Santa Fe 20th Anniversary Golf Tournament at 136 entries.
“We had to,” course marketing coordinator Henry Lucero said. “The entries kept coming in so we had to basically just put a stop to it.”
Barely a month after the city’s golf tournament failed to come anywhere close to the century mark for entrants, golfers of all kinds have been elbowing for room to take part in the Marty tournament designed to celebrate the course’s 20th year of operation.
It is the highlight of a summer’s worth of activities planned by the city to honor the two decades of service for what many consider to be the best municipal golf course in the state. Events to commemorate the anniversary began this spring and several more are planned the rest of the year.
The tournament, scheduled to basically run all day with a shotgun start July 20, includes a pair of special guests in LPGA legend Kathy Whitworth and the course’s original designer, Baxter Spann.
Whitworth is a New Mexico native and is regarded as one of the top athletes to ever come out of the state. She grew up in the southeast corner and went onto a celebrated professional career in which she became the first
female golfer to earn $1 million in prize money.
She has won more LPGA events than any golfer in history.
Spann is the course architect who spent many a day in what was then the barren outskirts of town trying to envision the layout for the beautiful links course that is there today. He has designed more than three dozen courses around the country, Marty Sanchez among his finest.
Whitworth and Spann are special guests of the city, each flying in from Texas to take part in the celebration that will include two competitive flights; one for men and women, another for just females.
Prizes will be handed out to the top finishers in each category, as well as door prizes created by Lucero and his staff.
Other dignitaries are, among others, former Mayors Sam Pick and Larry Delgado.
Pick was in office when the extensive groundwork for the course was hatched while Delgado was in charge when the course opened in 1998.