Coy Mabry first entered the Red Bud Invitational in 1968. He was 16 years old and well on his way to becoming a member of the University of Tennessee golf team.

“It was one of those tournaments everybody wanted to play in back then,” Mabry said Saturday. “It was a big deal.”

It’s still a big deal to the 57-year-old Mabry, who shot a respectable 79 in the 2009 Red Bud’s opening round at Valleybrook.

But for many area golfers, the Red Bud — like so many other tourneys — has apparently become an expendable event. Capable of hosting 120 golfers, it attracted only 53 to pay this year’s $125 entry fee ($95 for college students).

“There’s no question the economy’s hurting us,” said Gibby Gilbert III, who runs Valleybrook with his father. “But a tournament like this also takes up your whole weekend. And a lot of people just don’t have that much time anymore. The average family has too many things going on.”

Big Gibby will tell you that golf’s struggles can be traced to many things. And having earned more than $2 million during his career as a PGA and Senior Tour player, he knows more about the game than almost anyone in the Tennessee Valley.

“Yes, the economy is bad,” the elder Gilbert said. “But the weather’s been stinking since the first of November. We’re anxious to get some good weather on the weekends, then see if the economy’s really that bad or if it’s the weather that’s been keeping people away.”

Knowing that Valleybrook’s membership of about 200 is less than half what it was in the 1980s, he also said, “Golf was going bad before the economy was bad. We try to keep things reasonable around here, but golf is pricing itself out of reach for many people.”

Gilbert is right that Valleybrook is more reasonable than most. Including a cart, a golfer can play on weekdays for $30. The rate goes up to $40 on weekends. Yet for a weekend duffer that’s also $160 for four Saturdays a month. In today’s tight times, that’s a utility or a car insurance bill.

And that $160 doesn’t include clubs, shoes and golf balls.

“A driver alone can cost $500 now,” the elder Gilbert said, though he admitted those are professional level clubs. “A whole set of irons can run $900 or more. It’s never been a cheap sport to play, and it’s getting worse.”

Yet Mabry believes there could be something else hurting the Red Bud and other tournaments of its kind that has nothing to do with shrinking bank accounts.

“The economy certainly has something to do with this,” said Mabry, who won the Red Bud’s B Division two years ago with a final-round 70. “But a lot of guys who are second, third and fourth golfers in low balls around town are intimidated by the way the tournaments are set up now.

“Back in the old days nobody was embarrassed if they shot a 90 the first day. They’d just come back and try to win their flight. Now a lot of tournaments have done away with that format.”

Expanding on that theme, Mabry said, “I think golf has gotten a little out of touch with the average golfer. I think they need to cater a little more to the guys who shoot between 80 and 100.”

There are no certainties here except for the cold, hard fact that far fewer golfers seem to be participating than in decades past.

“When I was growing up, everybody around here played tournament golf,” said Gibby III, whose daughter Shelby shot a 75 playing from the men’s tees Saturday. “In fact, if you didn’t get your entry fee back to them on the first possible day, you were often left out of the tournament. But now there are so many one-day events trying to raise money for this cause and that cause that the weekend tournaments are really struggling for participants.”

This isn’t to say that everybody is leaving the course to watch Tiger Woods and Co. on television.

“I play every chance I get,” said 47-year-old Kurt Oldenburg, who was playing in his first Red Bud. “I started playing when I was 12 and I play once a day if I can.”

Nor does he anticipate the economy changing that.

“As long as I have a job,” he said, “I’ll play golf.”

But Valleybrook member Tommy Boone believes Oldenburg could be part of an ever-shrinking minority.

“When times are tough,” Boone said, “you sometimes have to cut back on those things that you really love.”

Or at least those things you used to love when you had both the time and money to enjoy them.