Monday’s announcement that Chris Stroud will be inducted into the Lamar University Hall of Honor on Nov. 21 helps shine a bit of a spotlight on how many really good golfers have teed it up for the Cardinals.
Stroud will be the ninth golfer accorded a place in the LU Hall of Honor, and several went on to have varying degrees of success in the professional ranks.
The list begins with old timer Butch Baird from the 1950s and includes Johnny Barlow Jr., Ronnie Black, Trevor Dodds, Kelly Gibson, Mike Nugent, John Riegger and current Beaumont Chief of Police Jim Singletary. All but Barlow, who grew up in Port Arthur, and Beaumonters Nugent and Singletary played on the PGA Tour.
Can the newest PGA card-carrying member, Dawie van der Walt, be far behind?
Stroud’s impending induction, incidentally, will mark the third significant recognition for his accomplishments. He’s the only golfer in the Southland Conference Hall of Fame and last winter joined Babe Zaharias, Marty Fleckman and Bruce Lietzke as golfers in the Sports Legends gallery in the Museum of the Gulf Coast.
As you are no doubt aware, Chris kicked off the 2015-16 PGA Tour season in fine form last week, finishing birdie-birdie to earn a ninth-place tie in the Frys.com Open. He earned $140,000 and moved up seven places to No. 117 in the Official World Golf Rankngs. He’ll try to keep climbing this week in Las Vegas.
One final note on the LU Hall of Honor inductions: Going in along with Chris and former volleyball/track star Cassi Presley Ridell is Rush Wood.
Rush, a dear friend who is dealing with serious health issues, was the PA News golf writer for a large portion of the 1990s. He earned his place in the Hall of Honor for outstanding work in two different stints as the LU Sports Information Director. When Lamar was in the process of bringing back football, Billy Tubbs, who was then the athletic director, talked him out of retirement to play a key role in the football process.
Please keep Rush in your prayers.
CHIP SHOTS
Jerry Honza, executive director of the First Tee of the Golden Triangle, staged another highly successful Tournament of Champions last week at Beaumont Country Club. With proceeds going to the youth development programs of the Port Arthur YMCA’s Golden Triangle Chapter of the First Tee, 172 players representing 39 different companies and organizations took part.
Among 30-plus volunteers involved were new Lamar women’s coach Jessica Steward and members of her team. They hit tee shots for all teams on the par 3, 17th hole. Winning foursome in the a.m. portion of the event was the TNT Crane team of Kevin Cline, Blake King, Colby Doucet and Robert Mann. They shot a 56.
In the afternoon shotgun, the Pepsi Bottling team of Wade Lowe, Terry Peddy, Joel Abbo and Don Taylor won with a 53. AM closest to the pin winners were Van Croft (No. 2), Richard Ternes (No. 4), Chris Forster (No. 10), Tony
Thibodeaux (No. 15) and Dillard Darbonne (No. 17). PM winners were Terren
Robinson (No. 2), Travis Watson (No. 4), Ron Burkhalter (No. 10), Marlon Domingues (No 15) and Scott Binagia (No. 17) . . . The team of Bob Byerly, Robert Stansbury, Paul Duplantis and Harold Wilkinson ran away with the Babe Zaharias DogFight with a whopping 21 points. Second with 16 points was the
foursome of Larry Johnson, Ed Hetzel, Dan Flood and Darrell McKee. Closest to
the pin winners were Mark Petry (No. 2), Rodney Christman (No. 7), Cliff Digiovanni (No. 12) and Adam Noel (No. 15) . . . The weekly Senior Game at The Babe was played in a best 3-ball format, with the team of Earl Richard, Larry
Foster, Bob Moore and Larry Rogers winning the front at plus 4. On the back
the foursome of Jim Jordan, Dillard Darbonne, Duplantis and Gene Noble prevailed with plus 1. Closest to the pin winners were Charlie Huckaby (No. 2)
and Harrell Guidry (No. 12) . . . The Super Saturday Game at The Babe was
played in a best 2 ball format. On the front the team of Rick Pritchett,
Guidry, Don MacNeal and Mike Norris won with minus 3. On the back, minus 3 won for Roddy Weatherly, Mike Lansford, Charles Leard and Gene Hardy . . . The Monday Senior 50 Plus Game at Babe Zaharias was played in a 2-ball format and
wound up with multiple ties. On the front, the team of Dennis Walsh, MacNeal,
Huckaby and Moore, the foursome of P.Y. Young, Wactor, Foster and Roger Baumer and the team of Noel, Raymond Darbonne, Dillard Darbonne and Pete Reobroi finished at minus 4. Finishing at minus 4 on the back was the Young team and the foursome of Steve Picou, Jim Cooper, Lee Bertrand and Billy Thillet.
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