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Past,
present and future. 2004 will witness Arnold Palmer’s
Bay Hill Club & Lodge welcome golf’s best of each
of those.
Each winter
Arnold Palmer heads to the Bay Hill Club & Lodge where
he makes his home for half the year. Each spring the world’s
best golfers stop in Orlando, Fla., for the PGA TOUR’s
Bay Hill Invitational. This summer, the future’s best
golfers will head to Orlando to tackle Arnold Palmer’s
Bay Hill Club & Lodge for themselves.
The American Junior Golf Association will stage the 18th annual
HP Boys Junior Championship in late July on the same course
that hosts one of the Tour’s most anticipated events.
The prestige of the course and its fabulous history rivals
that of the junior event it will now host. It can be argued
who is honored more by the new relationship—the course
or the tournament.
“We’re
thrilled to be bringing one of our finest tournaments to one
of the finest facilities in the country,” said Todd
Corum, director of major championships for the AJGA. “It’s
just the latest chapter in the storied history of the Boys
Championship.”
Bay Hill
boasts that its course “has everything Arnold Palmer
admires in a golf course: wide open fairways that provide
plenty of room to swing the driver, risk/reward options that
will tempt the go-for-broker in you and multiple rows of bunkers
protecting spacious and well-defined greens.”HP Boys
Junior Championship
Built in 1961, Bay Hill first welcomed Palmer in 1965 when
he played in a golf exhibition at the facility. After shooting
a 66, he fell in love with the course and decided to make
it his winter home.
It was in 1970 when he and a group of partners purchased the
Club and Lodge. Today, he serves as the primary owner along
with two other business associates and is president of “The
Bay Hill Club.” To this day, he still maintains a high
profile at the club.
“He’s
very active at the club,” said Brian Dorn, head golf
professional at Bay Hill. “He keeps his home here (in
the winter months) and it’s not uncommon to see him
six to seven times a week around the club and the golf course.”
The home
of one of golf’s greatest champions is now home to one
of junior golf’s most prestigious events. And with the
annual presence of today’s best professionals when the
PGA TOUR makes its swing through Florida, Bay Hill can proudly
lay claim to hosting the past, present and future best of
golf.
“It’s
pretty neat to have the best players in the world and the
best junior players at our facility in the same year,”
Dorn said. “We’re very excited. Anytime we can
get the best future golfers at our facility, that’s
a great feather in our cap.”
The AJGA
has annually staged the HP Boys Junior Championship, its premier
boys-only tournament, since 1987 when it inaugurated the event
at Gleneagles Country Club in Plano, Texas. Each year the
tournament has featured one of the strongest fields the AJGA
sees.
With past champions such as Tiger Woods, David Duval, Justin
Leonard, Jim Furyk, Charles Howell III, Ty Tryon and Matthew
Rosenfeld, the tournament boasts one of the most impressive
resumes of all events on the AJGA’s schedule.
“Over
the years, the HP Boys Junior Championship has always been
the finest boys-only field in junior golf,” said Beth
Reuter, vice president of Player Services for the AJGA. “This
year, the caliber of the golf course will shine as brightly
as the caliber of the field.”
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