Years ago, back in the day when I was coming along as a student, my Mom taught and mentored me in principles of classroom education. Little did I know how well her lessons would serve. One of her axioms, was, “Try to arrive early, sit on the front row if you can, and take notes.” What I am about to write comes from notes penned during the “get-go” — while our tournament was being nurtured from conceptualization to reality. It has been fun to read through everything again. You see, note-taking is a good discipline to have, inside and outside of classrooms.

It was early Summer, 2017. I grabbed a pen to jot down bullet-points during a evening phone call, when Allen Smith wanted to see if I would participate on a committee being formed to explore the idea of a Junior Golf Tournament hosted by our Hope Valley Country Club. He asked if I would “Fill the role of being the tournament’s History and Media person.” I made more than one full page of notes during that conversation. I’m guessing we talked for maybe half an hour. Key takeaways were that the tournament “Would be an annual event for boys and girls, would raise money for scholarships,” and “It will be very important to have a tournament that appeals to Parents and Kids.” Also in my notes were ideas about how to get everything rolling. I listened as Allen talked, with exuberance, about his personal experiences while attending other Junior tournaments that had been able to pull everything together successfully. The Bobby Chapman in Spartanburg was top of the list, at that time already 23 years into top-notch hosting.

Then these notes from a committee meeting at HVCC on August 1, 2017, paraphrased: “Tournament proposed to be a three day format, M T W (maybe just 2 at first?). Players would be ages 13 to 17, playing in threesomes. Have a Sunday night function for players and parents. Get college coaches here, have a coaches room set up, and have good food! The CGA would collect the Entry Fees and run the tournament. We were challenged to come up with a one-page pitch to raise $100,000 (for funding one or more scholarships per year). The NC Community Foundation would manage that money. Once we could get everything together, there would be a proposal presented to the HVCC Board.” Mind you, all of this was SEVEN years in the past.

At a subsequent meeting on 8/29/2017, this was our printed handout, organized since the prior meeting:
HOPE VALLEY COUNTRY CLUB JUNIOR CLASSIC
(Name was still evolving)
* Provide a championship venue and experience for junior golf in the Southeastern United States
* Re-establish a tournament golf tradition as envisioned by the Hope Valley Founders
* Provide HVCC members with a championship caliber course for yearly play
* Establish a means to to provide scholarship money to the Mashburn Fund at North Carolina State University [a named fund in honor of our former superintendent, Bob Mashburn]
* Provide an opportunity for golf operations (pro shop and superintendent) to showcase their work

Other details from that evening meeting would be perfunctory reading here. The 2023 Tournament will showcase the results of what we were doing.

My blue Notebook (photo included) is stuffed with many more pages of notes. But you get the idea. I believe Mom would give me a thumbs-up.

-by Andy Collins
7/31/2023