Dixie Golf Classic ready to make a comeback

The granddaddy of Macon’s amateur golf tournaments takes place this weekend at Idle Hour with the playing of the 71st annual Peach Blossom.

Defending Champions Shawn Hodge and Stan Gann Jr. are back to defend their title in the 72-team field, which will play Friday through Sunday.

The Peach Blossom started in 1947 and it had the local golf spotlight all to itself until 1979 when the Dixie Classic got its beginning at what is now known as the Brickyard Golf Club. Later, the Cherry Blossom tournament came on board at Bowden as part of the city’s Cherry Blossom Festival, and then the Honors tournament was established at Healy Point (River North).

No other city in Georgia, outside the Atlanta metro area, provided as many quality events as Macon.

Today, only the Peach Blossom and Cherry Blossom tournaments are still being played, but that is about to change. The Dixie Classic is making a comeback.

Tournament chairman Theron Ussery said that after a 14-year hiatus, the Dixie Classic will once again be contested at the location where it got its start. The Dixie was canceled after the 2003 event when new ownership took over the Riverside club. But a large contingent of Middle Georgia linksters have made it known that they would like to revive the popular tournament. This year, the event is set for August 11-13 at the par-72 Brickyard layout with a projected field of 60 teams. Registration for the Dixie will begin sometime next month.

Over its 25-year history, the Dixie Classic attracted some of the top amateur golfers in the state and Middle Georgia area and produced some notable champions.

The first was played in August of 1979 and was won by the Gibson brothers, Danny and Billy. They trailed the team of Al Jernigan and Howard Brown by three strokes going to the final nine on Sunday, but both brothers had eagles on the back stretch — Billy at 12 and Danny with a chip-in at 18 — and they won by a two-stroke margin, finishing at a17 under par 199. They had rounds of 65, 66 and 68. Five years later, they repeated as Dixie champions.

The final one at the then-named Riverside Country Club came in 2003 with the team of Chuck Reeves and Steve Walsh taking home the first-place trophy. The final round was delayed by rain and lightning, but Reeves and Walsh still managed a 4-under 68 to finish the 54-hole event at 17-under 199 after posting a 64 in the first round and 67 in the second round.

Their total was four shots better than the runner-up teams of Mickey Claxton and Phil Welch and of Phil Hardin and Hal Johnson.

Other teams that captured multiple championships over the tournament history were Walt Fugate and Jeff Morgan, Gay McMichael and two-time Mid Amateur Champion Jim Stuart, and Lee Gerdes and Sonny Trammel. McMichael also won with Chris Wood, Fugate teamed with David Potts to win and Morgan won with Eddie Causey.

Among the other winners of the event were Phil Hardin and Hal Johnson, Joe Starr and Thad Durkee, and Tommy Reid and Jimmy Allen. McMichael recalls playing in every Dixie Classic tournament with the exception of the first one.

To give you an idea of the interest in the tournament during the early years, there were 94 teams entered in 1981.

This year’s field will be flighted after the second round of action.

This story was originally published May 1, 2017 at 6:05 PM with the headline "Dixie Golf Classic ready to make a comeback."