The name Bob Bramlett is one of the most important in local golf.
So, if you sit in his office, listen very carefully.
The meeting was about a golf tournament coming back to Ardmore, the Trusted Choice Big “I” National Championship. It’s a big deal thanks to players like Tiger Woods, Bob Tway, Cristie Kerr and Grace Park, and thanks to courses like Pinehurst, Northgate and Dornick Hills.
The names are those of past champions and the courses are the really challenging ones the Big “I” has graced over 40 years. It’s a shame the event isn’t as well-known as the U.S. Amateur Open to the general sports fan.
When the Big “I” comes to Dornick Hills, you celebrate it and embrace it like a little-league baseball player coming to a regional. You also appreciate the men and women who help organize it each year; Bramlett is on the state committee for the tournament and is responsible for the finance.
Look around Bramlett’s office, however, and thoughts of football might distract you. (No worries for me.) He has enough artwork and crafts celebrating the history of Oklahoma football for a small wing of a museum.
All Sooners, all day for Bramlett. Then again, the same could be said about golf.
He builds great contacts with those who organize and play in Ardmore’s big tournaments. He’s in and around the clubhouse, and his eyes can be on the scores as closely as Oklahoma’s margin of victory in football.
Come late July, his eyes will be on the next Woods — or the next Anthony Kim, who knows? Bramlett’s main message to me was that Ardmore should keep its eye on the Big “I”.
It draws about 170 — 110 boys and 60 girls, Bramlett estimated — of the best players in America through local and state qualifying. Dornick Hills, which hosted the 2004 Big “I,” will play host to a state qualifier in June and host the National Championship July 27-30.
But don’t take it for another venue of child’s play in a small town. Consider what Bramlett and the committee have to consider for the Big “I”:
• Transportation: Not just from where a player stays to the course and back, but finding greeters at the airports where the players will arrive.
• Housing: Yeah, there are hotels, but families can host these players — like a little-league baseball player coming to a regional.
• Volunteers: For live scoring, serving beverages, driving and spotting, etc. …
That’s only naming three aspects the committee keeps in mind. The only thing Bramlett wants us to remember is this: The Big “I” is coming.
How can you be a part of it? Keep your eye out for that.
I.C. Murrell,
(580) 221-6527
ic.murrell@ardmoreite.com
