Eagle Bend hosts Grizzly Scholarship Association golf tourney

A light sprinkle of rain kicked off the Grizzlies Golf Classic at Eagle Bend Golf Course on Friday afternoon.

Sixteen teams of six at $130 per golfer played a scramble-style golf tournament that raised money for University of Montana athletic scholarships.

Grizzly Scholarship Association director Greg Sundberg said the Bigfork event usually raises $15,000-20,000.

“This is one of our biggest fundraisers, here in Bigfork,” Sundberg said. “The level of support is so great in the Flathead for us.”

Sundberg estimated this year’s tournament will help raise close to $18,000.

The tournament is one of many fundraisers on the GSA Spring Tour 2012. The tour is a series of golf tournaments, lunches and dinners held around Montana in May and June. Glasgow, Sidney, Billings and Ronan have already hosted tournaments this May and there are tournaments coming up in Lewiston, Butte and Hamilton.

Member’s of UM’s faculty, coaching staff and athletic department attend the tournaments. The Grizzlie’s head football coach, Mick Delaney, men’s basketball coach Jono Metzger-Jones, head women’s tennis coach Steve Ascher, head men’s coach Kris Nord and assistant track coach Adam Borg were a few in attendance Friday afternoon.

“I enjoy getting out and meeting the boosters,” Delaney said.

He played a couple holes with the tournament organizers Rick and Barb Cunningham. The two have organized the golf classic through the Flathead chapter of GSA for the last seven years.

“We were lucky to get a lot of major sponsors,” Barb said of this year’s tournament.

In addition to the money each golfer pays to participate, every hole is sponsored, and donors give money to the GSA and sponsor teams. This year’s major sponsors donated $1,000 or more and include Coors Light, Miller Light, and Kokanee, Depratu Ford and VW, Flathead Beverage-Budweiser, Flathead Electric Co-op, Glacier Bank, Moose’s Saloon, Northwestern Energy, Sportsman and Ski Haus, and Tamarack Brewery.

Rick said they’ve been involved with the Flathead branch of the GSA since they moved back to Montana in 2000. Rick graduated from UM in 1977 and Barb recieved her doctorate from UM in the 2000s.

Both worked as athletic trainers before moving back to Montana, in fact that’s how they met. It only seems natural to them to help support UM athletic scholarships by organizing the Bigfork golf tournament every year.

“Athletics has always been really important to us,” Rick said. “And we love the Griz.”