Seth Raynor’s Lookout Mountain Golf Club course recently got national attention in a five-page spread in Links magazine.
Club member Tom Schreiner gets to show it off again Monday and Tuesday with his Covenant College teams hosting the Reeder Cup tournament there. NCAA Division I member Liberty University was scheduled to take part but had to drop out this past week, but nine schools remain in the 36-hole men’s competition and six in the women’s.
Included are five of Covenant’s fellow Appalachian Athletic Conference members — Tennessee Wesleyan, King, Milligan, UVA-Wise and Virginia Intermont — Georgia NCAA Division III schools LaGrange and Piedmont and junior college Young Harris. Lee University is sending its first-year women’s team.
The competition is named for Harry Reeder, a Covenant graduate who played club golf with the Scots in the early 1970s and now is pastor of Briarwood Presbyterian Church in Birmingham.
“That’s a pillar church in the PCA (Presbyterian Church in America),” said Schreiner, noting that Reeder belongs to Birmingham’s famed Shoal Creek Golf and Country Club.
“He is a great friend of the school, an avid golfer and a great leader in the church,” Schreiner said. “We are proud to have his name tied to our event. And the name Reeder Cup is so close to Ryder Cup. It’s a great name for a great tournament.”
Covenant began men’s golf in 2004-05 and was the AAC tournament runner-up the last two years, but Schreiner said showcasing Scots golf or even the Lookout Mountain course was not his main objective with the Reeder Cup.
“We want to give these young golfers a wonderful tournament experience,” he said. “I would say that no team in our conference will have been to a tournament like we’re putting on. It’s going to be a knock-your-socks-off event.
“I’ve played in a bunch of tournaments, and I’ve stolen good ideas from almost every one,” Schreiner added, citing also the influence of longtime Chattanooga District Golf Association officer Mike Jenkins’ expertise. “And although it’s short, Lookout Mountain is a very interesting layout and a great tournament course. When you get on the green, your work’s only begun.”
The Reeder Cup began last year with four teams — and almost an inch of snow.
“We played all 36 holes in one day, and as the snow melted it got colder and colder,” Schreiner said. “We moved the date back another week for this year, and it looks like it’s going to be 70 Monday. Even with the rain we’ve had, the greens should be close to normal. They were hard and fast last year.”
Basketball coach Mike Poe has done a great job with the Tennessee Wesleyan men’s golf team, which went to the NAIA national tournament last spring and seems even better this season, and Hall of Fame former women’s basketball coach and athletic director Stan Harrison has the TWC women on the upswing.
Covenant, which is discussing a move to Division III, recently had its first tournament medalist, Dave Wilkinson, and has signed Amanda Saunders from Orlando, Fla., to join Jordan Agate from Pennsylvania in the women’s program that began this year.
Bryan College’s recent announcement that men’s and women’s golf will be added along with softball in the 2010-11 school year will mean that all the current AAC members will have golf programs.
For a bunch of those and perhaps some future league rivals, Covenant College and Coach Schreiner are providing an example of tournament golf at a high level, literally and figuratively.