ORLANDO, Fla. -- Golf Channel announced the field of 781 competitors who are scheduled to compete this week at the 2009 Golf Channel Amateur Tour (GCAT) National Championships in La Quinta, Calif. Tournament participants range in age from 10 to 76 and represent 42 U.S. States, Puerto Rico and Canada.
The national championships will take place Tuesday-Friday on seven championship courses in La Quinta - highlighted by famed PGA West - followed by the team national championship Saturday and Sunday.
Charlie Reiter of Palm Desert, Calif., is the youngest competitor in the GCAT National Championships in tournament history at age 10. California has the most participants entered at 154, followed by Florida (85) and Texas (84). Twelve participants in six flights - six from the open division and six from the senior (50+) division - will be crowned national champions at an official awards ceremony immediately following the tournament's conclusion on Friday.
Sixteen past champions are returning for the national championships, including six 2008 champions:
* Troy Boswell, Reynoldsburg, Ohio (Palmer flight, open division)
* Andrew Wilson, Lake Villa., Ill. (Hogan flight, open division)
* James Long, Granbury, Texas (Championship flight, senior division)
* Richard Mauersberg, Sherwood, Md. (Palmer flight, senior division)
* Ken Downing, Port St. Lucie, Fla., (Sarazen flight, senior division.)
* Vic Okler, Ballwin, Mo. (Sarazen flight, senior division)
The national championships will take place on seven championship courses, several which also have hosted prestigious tournaments, such as the Bob Hope Classic, the PGA TOUR Qualifying Tournament, The PGA Grand Slam of Golf and The Skins Game. Host courses include:
* PGA West's Jack Nicklaus Tournament Course
* PGA West's Greg Norman Course
* PGA West's Stadium Course
* La Quinta Resort & Club's Mountain Course
* SilverRock Resort
* Trilogy Golf Club at La Quinta
* Mountain View Country Club
La Quinta Resort, long recognized as a "Celebrity Hideaway," will serve as the tournament headquarters and the host resort for the national championships.
Golf Channel's Kelly Tilghman, Rich Lerner, Charlie Rymer, Tom Abbott, Adam Barr and Kraig Kann will be on-hand at the national championships, attending the welcome dinners and mingling with the competitors throughout the week.
Rymer, Tilghman and Lerner will host the open division and senior division welcome dinner tonight (Monday), while Kann, Barr and Abbott will host the team championship welcome dinner on Friday. In addition, Barr will report for Golf Central, which will include nightly score updates, and GolfChannel.com travel editor Erik Peterson will contribute to the popular Shag Bag blog with daily posts and entries throughout the week.
The Golf Channel Amateur Tour is managed and operated by GolfChannel.com, which ranks as the #1 golf destination on the Internet. GolfChannel.com is the exclusive home to this largest amateur tour in the country, currently comprising of more than 800 tournaments in 70 local chapters nationwide, providing casual players with a professionally-run golf tournament experience and the access to play at some of the greatest and most challenging courses in their hometowns. The Tour is part of GolfChannel.com's robust offerings designed to further grow the game of golf. GolfChannel.com also features an inventive digital platform designed to be the ultimate one-stop personal golf concierge service to help the recreational player enjoy every aspect of golf from getting the most up-to-the-minute golf news from around the world to help with how to play, where to play and what to play. The GolfChannel.com digital platform also includes: Golfnow.com, the Internet's most comprehensive online tee time booking service, offering users the ability to book tee-times at more than 1,500 courses nationwide at any time of day; and WorldGolf.com, the premier online golf travel network featuring the largest collection of national, regional and local golf travel domains. For additional information on the Golf Channel Amateur Tour, visit the GCAT web site at www.GolfChannel.com/amateurtour.
For additional information, contact Jeremy Friedman Golf Channel Public Relations at 407-355-4058 or jfriedman@golfchannel.com
