PIPESTEM, WV (WOAY) – The Appalachian Amateur Golf Tour is bringing amateur golf tournaments to Southern West Virginia.
Now that restrictions have listed and courses are open, they’ve finally gotten the chance to host the Summit Community Bank Open Championship.
Tour director Justin Keaton says they’ve been planning the event for more than five months.
“We’ve put on other golf tours before, amateur tours. And we wanted to bring amateur golf to West Virginia. And so we got together this past December, brainstormed some ideas. And sad hey, let’s get something together and get it going,” Keaton said.
The pandemic came at the worst time for the sports season. According to Keaton, this is the sixth golfing event they’ve planned to start the tour with, but only the first they’ve managed to get going.
“We had five that we had to cancel because of coronavirus. This is actually our first event today, and the weather has turned out great.”
This first event of the tour is taking place at Pipestem State Park, where any golfer of any skill level is welcome to come out and join the competition. One golfer participating in the tournament says he’s grateful that ranges have finally opened up during this difficult time.
“It’s just kind of like a stress reliever. With everything being as crazy as it is, with things being shut down, it’s very nice being able to get somewhere where you can still interact with people in a safe and responsible manner,” he said.
So far nearly 30 golfers have signed up for the tour, each having the chance to win the top prize, a custom-made trophy, with others getting the chance to win gift cards to various businesses.
The next event of the tour will take place on June 13 at Esquire Country Club in Barboursville.
