By GARY HARMON/The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel

Tuesday, January 05, 2010

This year, the Enstrom’s Rocky Mountain Open will be played for the 72nd time, but for the first time, competitors won’t tee it up at Lincoln Park. The longest-running open tournament in Colorado will instead be played at a revamped Tiara Rado Golf Course and at Bookcliff Country Club.

The open in recent years has been played at Lincoln Park and Tiara Rado. This is the first year Bookcliff Country Club will host a day’s play of the tourney.

Rocky Mountain Open tourney moves to Tiara Rado

The Rocky Mountain Open was born at Lincoln Park Golf Course in Grand Junction a few months before Lee Trevino was born near Dallas. It was the same year Sam Snead carded a snowman on the last hole of the U.S. Open, losing his lead and a chance to compete in a playoff for the only major title to elude him.

This year, the Enstrom’s Rocky Mountain Open will be played for the 72nd time, but for the first time, competitors won’t tee it up at Lincoln Park.

The longest-running open tournament in Colorado will instead be played at a revamped Tiara Rado Golf Course and at Bookcliff Country Club.

The open in recent years has been played at Lincoln Park and Tiara Rado. This is the first year Bookcliff Country Club will host a day’s play of the tourney.

Officials from the Colorado Golf Foundation, city of Grand Junction and Bookcliff Country Club are to sign the agreement today at Enstrom Candies, 701 Colorado Ave.

The move, RMO Director Mike Knode said, is aimed at boosting the size of the field, thus increasing the amount of money that can be raised for scholarships.

“That’s what it’s about,” Knode said. “The reason we do the Rocky Mountain Open is so we generate money for scholarships.”

By switching from Lincoln Park, a venerable nine-hole course, to the 18-hole Bookcliff track, Knode said he hopes to increase participation from about 190 players to 280 or 290.

It also will improve the pace of play to have two 18-hole courses instead of one that has to be played twice for the regulation 18 holes, Knode said.

Tournament organizers have discussed the idea for about three years with Bookcliff Country Club, said Mike Mendelson, head pro at Bookcliff. Country club officials were interested by the possibility of boosting revenue by hosting the tournament, Mendelson said.

“You lose some of that tradition” by leaving Lincoln Park, but also move to a recently renovated Bookcliff, Mendelson said. “I think it’s a good venue. I’m excited.”

Bookcliff should emerge in good shape, having been spared the pressure of winter play by a layer of snow, Mendelson said.

Competitors won’t see just a new course in Bookcliff. They’ll deal with a dramatically revamped Tiara Rado Golf Course, which is undergoing a $3.5 million transformation.

Organizers hope to tip their hat to Lincoln Park’s history, Knode said, by organizing a shootout at Lincoln Park on the afternoon of the pro-am, or perhaps with a clinic by a professional with Colorado connections.

There is plenty of history associated with Lincoln Park and the Rocky Mountain Open. It counts among its winners a U.S. Open champion. Orville Moody won the U.S. Open in 1969 and the Rocky Mountain Open in 1975.

Babe Didrikson Zaharias finished third as an amateur in 1946 and returned in 1950 to play with the professionals.

Over the years, pros Ed ‘Porky’ Oliver, Billy Maxwell and Dale Douglass played the tourney.

The Rocky Mountain Open was founded in 1939 by the Grand Junction Chamber of Commerce, and the tournament committee was headed by Chet Enstrom, grandfather of Jamee Simons, who owns Enstrom Candies with her husband, Doug.

Competitors will be missing something without Lincoln Park in the Rocky Mountain Open mix, said Eloy Vendegna, head pro at Lincoln Park.

“Lincoln Park has always proven to be a tougher course than Tiara Rado,” said Vendegna, who has played the tournament several times. “We get guys here off the mini-tours, they look at Lincoln Park and think they’ll shoot 64, and they walk off with 74.”

When the tournament is played this year at the other courses, Lincoln Park will be true to its roots, Vendegna said.

“We’ll be open to the public,” he said.

Link to original article:

http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/content/news/stories/2010/01/05/010610_1a_RMO_out_of_Lincoln.html