Turnout for Bunyan increased with Kebo back in rotation

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Skip Chappelle, tournament director for the recently completed 41st Whited Ford Paul Bunyan Amateur Golf Tournament, had his hopes for a better turnout this year answered.

The field is split into three approximately equal divisions based on handicap. The divisions rotate among the three courses the tournament uses – Bangor Municipal Golf Course, Rockland Golf Club, and this year, Kebo Valley Golf Club in Bar Harbor.

Chappelle wanted to see if returning Kebo to the rotation would draw more players.

In order to make that change, he had to move the tournament dates to a week earlier rather than the usual Father’s Day weekend that it has been for many years.

He also decided not to raise the entry fee, $84, to see if any change in the size of the field was affected by Kebo and not a price increase.

With a final field of more than 320 players – up about 30 percent over last year, according to Chappelle – he thinks he has his answer.

“People were coming up to me, going out of their way to thank us,” said Chappelle.

The increase in players was important to Chappelle.

“We were in the red the last two years,” he said. “We’re not going to operate in the red this year.”

The final numbers won’t be ready for a couple of days, though, said Chappelle.

After being in the red for two years, Chappelle said, “the natural thing to do would be to raise the price, but we decided to try to get Kebo and not raise the price.

“Obviously, from a business standpoint, it was a good thing to do.”

That’s not to say there won’t be a price increase in the future.

“I’ve had people tell me they’d pay $100 to play the Bunyan,” said Chappelle.

While he doesn’t expect to go that high yet, Chappelle did say that a price increase is possible.

Actually, price ranks third in the number of comments Chappelle gets about the Bunyan.

“The first thing they do is thank me for the travel [help],” said Chappelle.

With many people traveling long distances and traveling together, he said he fields requests that the people in the group have starting times close to each other so no one has to wait a long time before or after a round.

“The second [comment] I’d get was ‘Thank you for getting Kebo on board,'” said Chappelle.

Chappelle sees all of those comments as resulting from his attempt to be as accommodating as possible.

“It was just great,” he said. “I spend a lot of time being golfer friendly.”

Chappelle believes he’ll be talking soon to Kebo about next year. As for the date change, it’s likely to stay this way for the future.

“We didn’t have more comments on [playing on] graduation [weekend] than we did for Father’s Day,” said Chappelle.

“I think the experiment worked from our perspective,” said Chappelle.

Bar Harbor Bank and Trust Open

A note from Jane Sanderson from the development office of Maine Coast Memorial Hospital in Ellsworth, said the recent Bar Harbor Bank and Trust Open raised more than $20,000 for the hospital’s hospice/palliative care and diabetes education programs.

Publinx update

With the recent death of Austin Kelly, Bangor Muni head pro Brian Enman said he has taken over some of the duties of the U.S. Amateur Public Links qualifier scheduled for Tuesday at Bangor.

“I’ll be handling the tee times and setting up the course,” said Enman.

He hasn’t heard if the USGA, which conducts the event, will be sending up another person to oversee the event, but he doubts it. Enman said he worked with Kelly on it for years and has handled the paperwork in the past, so he feels confident that everything will go smoothly.

Good news, bad news

The good news, as many people noticed this past weekend, is that warmer weather has made an appearance in Maine.

While temperatures in the high 80s with high humidity don’t always make the most pleasant days, they’re better than the 50s and rain we had for most of May.

The bad news? The days start getting shorter next week.

Doesn’t seem fair.

Dave Barber can be reached at 990-8170, 1-800-310-8600, or by e-mail at dbarber@bangordailynews.net.