BANGOR – Starting today, the region’s top professional golfers – joined by a healthy field of amateurs – will begin to wage a battle at the 33rd Greater Bangor Open.

The tourney runs three days, concluding on Sunday afternoon. The winning pro will receive $10,000 of the $50,000 total prize pool.

But on Wednesday, everybody had a shot at fame and relative fortune as the yearly Pro-Am and driving contest were held at Bangor Municipal Golf Course.

Take Winterport’s Ed Meo, for instance.

Meo, the 32-year-old finance director at Darling Ford in Bangor, teed off in the second Pro-Am group of the day, then returned in the evening to play long ball with the pros.

The burly Meo, who plays to a 9.6 handicap at Hermon Meadow GC, showed he belonged with the event’s longest hitters: After failing to hit a ball within out-of-bounds markers on his first two tries, he nailed his third and final shot pin-high on the par-4 first hole.

The measurement: 324.3 yards. The result: An early lead in the event.

Eventually Meo was surpassed. But he got to enjoy watching seasoned pros, including one card-carrying PGA Tour member – come up short in pursuit of his standard.

“I thought I was gonna get it,” Meo said shortly after pro Eric Egloff of Rockville, Md., launched a drive of 332.2 yards to knock him back to second place.

Meo, who finished in third place, admitted to some pre-contest jitters, but said he has confidence in the fact that he can hit the ball as far as most.

“Basically, I know I can get off the tee about 300 yards,” he said. “I’ve played golf with a bunch of people in Maine and there’s nobody who can keep up with me [off the tee].”

One pro who tried – and failed – was Corey Harris of West Hartford, Conn.

Harris bashed perhaps the most entertaining drive of the contest when he sheared the shaft off his driver on his third attempt.

The ball went off line, but the clubhead really flew.

“The head went a good buck-fifty, buck-seventy,” Harris said. “I hit it real hard.”

The downside of the miscue is that Harris, who didn’t bring another driver, will have to borrow one for the GBO.

On the other side of the spectrum was Egloff, who said he views long-drive contests as sheer fun.

“You change your game plan around a little bit,” Egloff said. “Instead of going out and picking a target, you go out and pick a wider target and swing harder.”

It worked. But Egloff said he could have hit the ball longer.

“I didn’t get all of it,” he said. “But it was a pretty good trajectory, so it drove pretty well.”

Home-course advantage?

It’s tempting to give Bangor Municipal assistant pro Mike Baker an edge in the GBO.

After all, he’s an accomplished player who has qualified for the field of the PGA Championship in August.

And he’s got to have all kinds of local knowledge, since it seems as if he spends nearly all his waking hours at the course.

That’s just as good a reason to pick another golfer as the favorite.

When Baker served as a late substitute and teed off with the first Pro-Am group at 7 a.m. Wednesday, it marked the first round he’d played at the course all year.

“For one reason or another, I’m either teaching or away or just plain working,” Baker said. “So it was kind of a bonus to get out and get in the first group, run out and see the place.”

Baker said there are two ways to view his employment at the tourney’s host course.

“You’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t,” he said with a chuckle.

“If you play well, it’s `He’s supposed to, he works there,’ ” Baker said. “And if you don’t, it’s `Well, he works there, so he probably doesn’t get much of a chance to play.’ ”

Suburban oasis

Despite continued dry weather that has plagued the Northeast, players making return trips to the GBO are likely to find Bangor Muni a bit more plush than usual.

That’s because extensive work on the course’s irrigation system has begun to pay dividends.

Len Cole, who grew up playing Bangor and is now a pro and the proprietor of XL Golf in Hermon, said he can’t remember a similar GBO setup.

“It’s definitely a lot softer than it’s ever been,” Cole said. “You can fly balls into the greens and you have to fix ballmarks. That’s the first time ever in this tournament that there’s been the combination of the two things.”

Bangor head pro Brian Enman said the course is significantly different than the ones golfers struggled with last year.

“We were very, very dry last year also, so we had a real hard, dry, fast golf course and it played extremely difficult as a result,” Enman said.

Things got so bad earlier this year that Enman feared he may lose some of the greens before the irrigation system could be activated.

That disaster was averted, and the greens have recovered.

Cole and Enman both said the results may have an effect on scorecards.

“It’s going to play a lot longer than what it’s played in the past, but [because] they can throw their shots in at the pin instead of bouncing them on, it should lower the scores,” Cole said, predicting averages to sink by a stroke a day.

Tennis, anyone?

Making his fourth straight GBO appearance is former tennis great Ivan Lendl, who admits that his move from the grass of Wimbledon to golf course fairways has been trying at times.

“It’s been a lot of fun,” Lendl said. “It’s frustrating, but sometimes it’s good, too.”

Lendl said the major change in his athletic pursuits is the time he’s willing to devote to them.

“I worked more at tennis, because when I was a kid I had more time, and then when I was on tour, I was single and I didn’t have any kids,” Lendl said.

“Now I’ve got five kids, and I don’t have all the time. I try to spend a lot of time with them.”

After four trips to Bangor Muni, Lendl was quick to point out the differences the new watering regimen has begun to cause. And he’s eagerly looking toward the future.

“[Improvements] are still in progress, obviously. But I think if they decide to grow the rough, it will make the golf course much tougher,” he said. “It would – or will be – very, very interesting.”

Past Champions

1998 – *Joe Cioe 206 1997 – John Hickson 203 1996 – *Brian Lawton 200 1995 – Eric Egloff 201 1994 – Jason Widener 202 1993 – Gus Ulrich 199 1992 – *Jeff Julian 206 1991 – Mike Colandro 205 1990 – Andy Brock 202 1989 – Gus Ulrich 205 1988 – Richard Parker 203 1987 – Bob Mattiace 208 1986 – **Mike Baker, Marc Arnett 136 1985 – Jeff Lewis 203 1984 – Chip Hall 206 1983 – *Jeff Grygiel 207 1982 – Jeff Lewis 207 1981 – Peter Teravainen 208 1980 – Jack Ferenz 205 1979 – a-Mark Plummer 207 1978 – *Rocky Thompson 213 1977 – Bruce Douglass 207 1976 – Mike Buja 206 1975 – Mike Shea 207 1974 – Bruce Ashworth 205 1973 – *Marion Heck 207 1972 – *Paul Barkhouse 209 1971 – Lanny Wadkins 201 1970 – George Johnston 207 1969 – Jerry Abbott 209 1968 – Joel Goldstrand 203 1967 – Ed Wiatr 207

(a-amateur)

(*-won playoff)

(**-co-champs, tourney halted by rain)