When the Trans-Mississippi Championship last allowed college-age golfers to compete, Steve Ziegler and Gunner Wiebe weren’t yet born, so it’s not easy for the two Coloradans to think of the tournament as one of the premier amateur events in the nation.
But if there’s any doubt, a look at past champions will confirm the status the Trans-Miss once held. Several players who would go on to win major championships — including Jack Nicklaus, Ben Crenshaw, George Archer, Mark Brooks and Bob Tway — earned Trans-Miss titles, as did others who made a big impact in golf (Charlie Coe, Deane Beman, etc.).
And now, after 23 summers — 1987 through 2009 — of limiting the Trans-Miss to players 25 and older, the event will try to regain its former luster starting this year. Denver Country Club, which hosted its first Trans-Miss Championship exactly 100 years ago, will have the honor of helping the tournament add a new chapter to its storied history. The 2010 event, which also includes a senior division for competitors 55 and older, will run Tuesday through Thursday (July 13-15) at DCC.
But the transformation back to the good old days certainly won’t be immediate.
“I think it will be a top-notch event (this year), but it will take some time for the (college) players to be conscious of it because right now they don’t really know what the Trans-Miss is,” said Broomfield’s Steve Ziegler, a Stanford golfer and quarterfinalist in the 2009 U.S. Amateur. “I’m telling them what I’m playing in and they don’t know it right off the bat. It’s not one of those events that’s been around (for college-age players) year in and year out.”
This year’s championship field will include a smattering of the world’s top amateurs. Kevin Tway of Edmond, Okla., ranked 20th in the World Amateur Rankings, will be competing. And at least a half-dozen others ranked among the top 200 amateurs in the world also will be playing: Ziegler (70), Gunner Wiebe of Aurora (103), Jared Becher of Reno, Nev. (124), Nate Barbee of Dakota Dunes, S.D. (135), Scott Pinckney of Scottsdale, Ariz. (156) and Regis High School graduate Jamie Marshall of Fayetteville, Ark. (186).
A couple in that group, Tway (pictured) and Wiebe, have fathers who played in the Trans-Miss back in its heyday and who subsequently won on the PGA Tour. (Bob Tway won the 1978 Trans-Miss in which Mark Wiebe also competed.) Those sons may have more appreciation for the event than most.
“I remember looking at the Trans-Miss when I was a freshman in high school and wishing I could play in it,” said Gunner Wiebe, a University of San Diego golfer who won the CGA Match Play Championship on Friday. “It’s nice that it’s been changed from a mid-amateur (25 and older) to an amateur event. You get a nice field, good talent.
“Obviously for Kevin to come to Denver, that’s a big deal, being where he’s ranked in the world. When people see that Kevin Tway is coming, they’ll think it must be a big deal. And hopefully that will extend to the college players who don’t know much about the Trans-Miss. Over the next five or six years, I think it will kind of regenerate and get that name going a little bit more.”
Nicklaus won the Trans-Miss in 1958 and 1959 as an 18- and 19-year-old, while Archer prevailed in 1963, Crenshaw in 1972, Tway in 1978 and Brooks in 1979 — all before age 25. From after World War II through 1986, familiar names are sprinkled through the list of Trans-Miss champions. Besides the aforementioned major championship winners, there’s Coe (four times), Beman, Gary Koch, Robert Wrenn and Bob Estes, to name several.
Whether the transformed Trans-Miss can get the depth of talent the tournament had in its heyday remains to be seen. The world of amateur golf has changed markedly over the decades, so it will take some work for the Trans-Miss to have a chance to return to its former stature.
“The problem is, it’s so competitive now on the amateur golf scene,” Ziegler said. “From the time Nicklaus and those guys were winning the tournament (to now), there’s a lot more competition to get the top amateurs at certain events — and there’s a lot more events. The Trans-Miss could (become a top-level amateur tournament again), but the odds are kind of against it because there are so many well-established amateur tournaments already there.”
Allowing players under 25 to compete isn’t the only major change the Trans-Miss made starting with this year’s event at Denver Country Club. It’ll also switch from match play to 54 holes of individual stroke play.
As for Denver Country Club, it has a long history with the Trans-Miss. As one of the 15 original clubs in the Trans-Mississippi Golf Association, it’s previously hosted the Trans-Miss Championship in 1910, 1921, 1946 and 1980. The Trans-Miss also has been held six times at the Broadmoor Golf Club in Colorado Springs, four times at Cherry Hills Country Club in Cherry Hills Village and once at Lakewood Country Club.
Even though Denver Country Club will play only about 6,800 yards (par-70) for the Trans-Miss, don’t look for the college players to outmuscle it. It’s considered a shotmaker’s course.
“It’s going to be a great site to host that tournament,” Wiebe said. “I remember playing there and hitting a lot of irons off the tee. There’s maybe four or five holes where you hit driver. The point of an old, traditional course like that is position. It’s all strategy. You want to be up the right side of the fairway if the pin is left.
“You can’t overpower DCC. You can overpower a lot of courses in Colorado, but you cannot do that there. I’ve tried and failed miserably. I’ll be playing that very conservatively, for sure. Par is a great score on pretty much every hole.”
–TRANS-MISS SCORES
