This Week's Sign of the Apocalypse (Apologies To SI)

Greg Stewart in the Peoria Journal Star writes about a Meeks like setup debacle in qualifying Tri-County Junior Boys Championship!

"They almost missed the green with some of those," Wayne Hammerton, following his grandsons, said of cups cut a flagstick from the fringe on several holes.

The apparent culprit was a grounds-crew employee, which left tournament director Terry Ridgely and Madison pro Gene Petty passing the buck.

"We might not get any low scores with the way those pins were set," said Ridgely.

"That's the way they used to do it for the Publinx," said Petty.

But this wasn't a qualifier for the U.S. Public Links Championship. It was a tournament that had entrants as young as 12 years old, many of them playing tournament golf for the first time. Later in the week, I spoke with the man who set the controversial cups, an 11-year employee of the golf course who asked that his name not be used.

"For us, it's a big deal to get the golf course set up correctly," he said. "But I played the other day with a kid who drove every green on the back side. My mouth was on the ground.

And here we go, the money quote.

"There's not much we can do to lengthen this golf course and the old guys would kill us if we grew the rough. About the only thing we can do to make the course more challenging is make the greens faster and put the pins in tough spots. I just hope we didn't tick too many people off."

Probably not. But in the interest of growing the game by creating positive experiences, I would think the tournament committee would be more involved with course setup and save the Sunday pins for the finals.