PGA Barbasol: Tubby Smith reconnects, and Bill Meck tests Mother Nature
Mark Stoops wasn’t the only player in Wednesday’s PGA Barbasol Championship Pro-Am with a credit as University of Kentucky head coach on his resume.
Former UK basketball coach Tubby Smith, who led the Wildcats to the 1998 national championship and spent 10 seasons with the program, also participated in the Barbasol kickoff event at Keene Trace Golf Club in Nicholasville — and the 2003 National Coach of the Year and three-time Southeastern Conference Coach of the Year relished the opportunity.
“It’s a great chance to reconnect with some friends,” Smith said. “We’ve been out on the road but we have this weekend off, so we don’t have to be out recruiting until next Tuesday. So I had a couple of days I could get up here and see some friends and play a little golf.”
Smith just completed his first season as head coach at High Point University in North Carolina, from which he and his wife, Donna, graduated.
“It’s been wonderful,” Smith said of the return to the program for which he played from 1969-1973. “It’s like anything else, you have things you have to work on and the biggest thing is recruiting. And we feel like we had an excellent recruiting class this year.”
Picked to finish seventh in the 11-team Big South Conference last season, High Point went 16-15 overall and 9-7 in league play to finish fifth. The Panthers lost a close game in the second round of the conference tournament to Gardner-Webb, which went on to put a scare into eventual national champion Virginia in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, leading by six at halftime before the Cavaliers pulled away late.
“We’ve got four freshmen that I think will help us right away and we redshirted a 6-foot-10 kid that’ll be a freshman,” Smith said. “It was a good experience and it’s great to be back at the place where me and my wife both went to school.”
Gran plays it safe
UK football offensive coordinator Eddie Gran drew a heavy hitter as his professional teammate during Wednesday’s Pro-Am. Gran played in the group with defending Barbasol champion Troy Merritt, and the Wildcats’ signal caller was impressed.
“He is a stud,” Gran said. “He’s been so good to us. It’s neat to see him hit the ball effortlessly. He’s been so gracious so it’s been a lot of fun for me.”
Asked about how he was playing as he made the turn, Gran replied, “Some good, some bad and some ugly. I’m glad it’s a shamble because some of my drives have been less than stellar.
“But I’ve been able to help a bit on the short-game stuff so that’s what makes it so much fun.”
Gran was playing two groups behind his boss, and when he was asked whether he or Mark Stoops is the better golfer, Gran replied with a Cheshire Cat grin that made one wonder whether he was being forthcoming or diplomatic.
“Oh, Coach Stoops is better, of course. It’s a no-brainer.”
Weatherman report
Bill Meck, chief meteorologist for WLEX-18 in Lexington, took a break from predicting the weather to play in Wednesday’s Pro-Am. The Iowa State University graduate, who arrived in Lexington in 1999, gave his game a mixed review.
“I’m getting the ball up in the air, so that’s the important part,” Meck said. “I have no idea where the ball is going, but at least it’s up in the air. I’ve hit some stuff that looks good, it just ends up nowhere near the hole.”
Meck, who played in last year’s Pro-Am, gave the Champions Course a glowing review.
“The course looks good, it’s playing terrific,” he said. “Hopefully we just avoid the big storms we had last year.”
For a while Wednesday it looked like a storm might put a damper on the day. Meck blamed one of his teammates for inducing a light shower that lasted about 15 minutes.
“He said it looks like the rain’s gonna hold off, then literally 30 seconds later, boom, here it comes. So don’t mess with the weather.”
Forecast
Unlike last year’s Barbasol Championship, which was marred by thunderstorms that caused several delays and pushed the tournament finish from Sunday to Monday, this year’s edition appears to have caught a break from Mother Nature.
On Wednesday, overcast morning skies and a brief shower gave way to clear and humid conditions. Thursday’s forecast calls for a 40 percent chance of rain, Friday’s a 20 percent chance, Saturday’s a 10 percent chance and Sunday’s a 40 percent chance. The temperature is expected to rise into the low-to-mid 90s over the course of the tournament.
