Almost every player in this year’s St Jude Classic presented by Smith & Nephew will drive a courtesy car donated to the event by Landers Motors, Keras Automotive and Enterprise Car Rental. In addition, Enterprise will supply the tournament with 40 trucks and vans to use as shuttle vehicles during the event, June 7-13, at TPC Southwind. “We are very grateful for the support of these dealers and companies.” said Jack Sammons, general chairman of the official PGA TOUR event. “We have...

One of my favorite childhood memories was watching The Masters every year with my Dad. We would watch the rebroadcast on Thursday and Friday nights, the wrap up show after those telecasts and then watch the live weekend coverage. The old saying "The Masters doesn't start until the back 9 on Sunday" was always true as players shuffled up and down the leaderboard with the difficult stretch of holes 10-12, birdie and eagle opportunities at holes 13 & 15, one last water shot at hole 16 and a...

Yesterday had to be a journalist's dream come true...so many story lines to choose from, I'm sure it was one of those days in the media center where it's harder to trim down your story than make sure you have enough words to fill the space. Here are the things that caught my attention yesterday...starting with Tiger Woods. If there was any rust in his game, it certainly didn't show yesterday. He might have been slightly off with the putter, but the ball striking was as good as ever and the...

Well, The Masters is finally underway after what seems like endless analysis and speculation of Tiger's return to competitive golf. I'm sure it will be an interesting afternoon and I (like many others) am anxious to see how Tiger plays in this opening round and how much of his story is talked about by the announcers during the broadcast. In the meantime, two former SJC champions are off to good starts this morning. Brian Gay was out in 2-under par for the opening nine holes while David Toms...

It's hard to believe we are just nine days from Masters week. This means that one-third of the PGA TOUR season is nearly in the books already. With the return of Tiger Woods dominating golf news over the last month, I thought I would take a look at a couple of players I feel are sliding under the radar at the moment but trending in the right direction. These players are David Duval and John Daly. Both of these players have tremendous talent. Both have won major championships and both have...

Spring has officially arrived, and not a moment too soon. I'm one who enjoys all four seasons of the year as each brings its own traditions and anticipations. Fortunately for me, I have lived all of my life in areas of the country that have allowed me to enjoy four distinct seasons (sometimes that's debatable here in Memphis, but for the most part it holds true) and I can make a strong argument for each one as my favorite. Just for fun, let's take a quick look. I'll start with...

St. Jude employee Jeff Pearson recalls his visit to the 1977 Danny Thomas Memphis Classic Pro-Am  Growing up I always looked forward to the Pro-Am at the Danny Thomas Classic. This particular year one of the celebrities was Former President Ford. Our group went to the par 3 fifth hole to see him play through. Soon President Ford arrived, hit his first shot and it proceeded to go in the hole. We saw President Ford hit his hole-in-one. As he was walking up the fairway, a golf cart came...

Veteran Memphis sportscaster Jack Eaton frequently used a poem as part of his newscast. Recently, Jack collected many of his poems in a book. Here is an entry from that book recapping Dicky Pride's improbable win at the 1994 Federal Express St. Jude Classic. Pride was the third alternate into the field that year. The 25-year-old product of the University of Alabama defeated Hal Sutton and Gene Sauers on the first hole of sudden death...and had the Mid-Southern crowd behind him all week. As I...

Loren Roberts played in Memphis for the 25th time last year. His thoughts: I still remember my first tournament in 1981. I tied for 22nd. I actually whiffed a ball three times on the 16th hole -- the par 5 over the lake at Colonial -- in the first round. I made a 9. That's the last time I remember making a nine on a hole. But I still made the cut that year. I only made about 7 or 8 cuts that year. It was a gorgeous summer in Memphis at that time of year. Playing in the Memphis tournament...

Bobby Hall covered the St. Jude Classic and the PGA TOUR for almost 40 years for The Commercial Appeal. Here is Bobby's recollection of the day Al Geiberger shot 59 -- In about 40 years of reporting sports for The Commercial Appeal, the news life of one story I covered has out-lived all others. It happened June 10, 1977 and the buzz continues -- even today. Certainly I never anticipated the 59 that Al Geiberger shot in the second round of the Danny Thomas Memphis Classic would stand so...

It's been hard to believe it's been 22 years since the tournament moved to TPC Southwind. John Mahaffey won the first event at TPC Southwind in 1989. But, few people remember that a pro-am was played at the course the prior year called "The Inaugural Pro-Am." It was the first time an "off-site" pro-am had been played in the tournament's history. Prior to The Inaugural, all pro-ams had been conducted at the host course -- Colonial Country Club. Those of us selling the event at the time were...

St. Jude's place in the tournament's stratosphere was sealed in 1977. But let me digress for a minute. In 1969, tournament officials heard that entertainer Danny Thomas was starting a celebrity golf event in Miami Beach -- the Diplomat Classic.  A few of the members of the tournament board went to Florida and said "Danny, why don't you just come on board with the Memphis tournament and we'll name you Honorary Chairman and give all of our proceeds to St. Jude?" Danny loved the idea and...