"IF YOU LIKE GOLF"
online golf column
by
Chris Dortch

May 3, 2007

Chattanooga’s top amateur golfers will compete under a new rating system this season.

Ifyoulikegolf.com and Chattanooga Golf Center, soon to be called Z Golf, will join forces to sponsor a season-long points race styled after the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup. Based on their play in various local, state, regional and national tournaments, local players will be ranked. The top 30 will automatically be eligible to play in the season-ending Chattanooga TPC. The player who emerges from that tournament with the most points in the ZCup standings will earn the ZCup.

“All of this is about local golf,” said Mike Jenkins, Ifyoulikegolf.com co-founder and tournament director of the TPC. “We’re trying to maintain interest and participation in our local tournaments.”

Winners of the five Chattanooga-area tournaments—Brainerd, Cleveland, Red Bud, Signal Mountain and the Men’s Metro—will earn 60 points, the second-place finishers 38, third 34, and so on. The Tennessee Golf Association’s State Open, State Amateur, Four Ball Championship, Mid-Amateur and State Match Play will also fit into the equation. Winners of a statewide event can earn 75 points, top 10 finishers 40, etc. Even making the cut, or in the case of the match-play events, advancing, can earn points.

USGA events will also be included and award as few as 25 points for advancing through local qualifying and up to 150 for a victory.

The Southern Amateur will also be calculated into the standings. Local amateurs can earn 25 points if they make the cut and more points for a top15 finish.

Zeb Patten, the PGA professional who operates the Chattanooga Golf Center, is about to take his business outside the Chattanooga area. The company, Z Golf, will soon open an equipment-fitting center and retail outlet in Charlotte, N.C. and is also opening a facility in Memphis.

“To attach my name to Chattanooga amateur golf like this is probably the biggest honor I’ve had in my golf career,” Patten said. “We’re very excited to be a part of this.”

Previously, players who advanced to the TPC did so by earning “stars” for their play in various tournaments. Now, the top 30 players in the ZCup standings will be given invitations into the TPC field.

The TPC, now in its 15th year, begins with stroke-play qualifying, which sends 16 players into three days of match play.

“The actual running of the TPC won't change,” Jenkins said. “But to draw more attention to the ZCup throughout the year, we’ve eliminated the star system for the TPC, and the TPC field will be made up of the top 30 from the ZCup standings after the Tennessee State Mid-Amateur.

“The leader of the ZCup standings at the conclusion of the TPC wins the ZCup [Player of the Year]. Thus the TPC becomes our “Tour Championship.”

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