Brad Sawyer Memorial Golf Tournament breaks 100 for the first time

By John Burbridge

sports@charlescitypress.com

CHARLES CITY — The rite to passage for your average and not-so-average duffer is to finally break 100 in an 18-hole round of golf.

Most of the four-person teams that gathered en masse at Wildwood Golf Course last Saturday for the Brad Sawyer Memorial Golf Tournament had no problem staying under triple-digits after two circuits around the 9-hole public course.

But as a whole, the annual tournament breached a century on the positive side for the first time in its quarter century history.

“This is the most people we’ve had,” said Annie Sawyer, surviving mother of Brad and torchbearer for her son’s namesake tournament.

There were 26 four-person teams — three teams to a hole. Past tournament turnouts and formats yielded about 25 to 27 three-person teams.

Even when the tournament was a three-person-best-shot, the Brad Sawyer Memorial had grown to be the most popular annual golf event in the city … or region for that matter.

“We had 104 golfers,” said Annie, who for the third-straight tournament was a participant. “Some of the people who normally don’t play in this but come down just to help out and meet with people they haven’t seen in a while decided to play this time.”

With 12 players to a hole, often with many of them fanning out throughout the course from various angles from the tee box after their first shots, and with some of these wayward shots sailing into adjacent fairways with heads-up frequency, “Fore!” was the word of the day.

But some shots actually went straight toward the vicinity of the intended target as the tournament traditionally attracts some of the best players in the region — even someone graced with the ambidexterity to make clutch shots with both hands.

Chris Freiberg is an example of someone with such switch-hitting prowess..

Shortly after sinking a 10-foot putt for birdie while putting left handed, Freiberg switched hands to drive with his right with his team starting again on Wildwood’s Hole No. 1 tee box — a Par 4 287-yard left-leaning dogleg. Taking the bravest aerial path — driving the ball high over the trees to cut the corner of the dogleg — Freiberg placed the ball within 20 feet of the cup before his team eventually chipped in for an eagle.

“That’s just the way I play,” Freiberg said. “Putt with the left, drive with the right.”

Brad Sawyer was another player with an all-around game.

An All-Northeast Iowa Conference Charles City Comet golfer, Brad was a fixture at Wildwood Golf Course as his passion for the game never waned even after graduation.

On Oct. 13, 1999, Brad died in an automobile accident. He was 20 years old.

The following year Brad’s surviving father, Scott Sawyer, organized the inaugural Brad Sawyer Tournament in memory of his son and for a chance for Brad’s family and friends to gather every summer at Brad’s stomping grounds.

After Scott died in 2010, Brad’s mother Annie and Brad’s sister Tara — a golf enthusiast herself who also was a Comet golfer — became the tourney’s curators as well as frequent and semi-frequent participants.

In addition to the tournament breaking 100 for the first time, it reached another milestone depending on how you calculate the math.

Last year’s tournament coincided with the 25th anniversary of Brad’s 1998 graduating class at Charles City High School. This year is the 25th anniversary of the tournament itself, though it’s only the 24th played as the 2017 tournament was washed out due to major flooding in the area that summer.

That was the only Brad Sawyer Memorial Golf Tournament canceled due to weather-imposed conditions.

“I’m always worried about the weather when the day approaches … especially the way it’s been this summer,” Annie said. “It was raining when we started [at about 10 a.m.] but it ended up being a wonderful day.”

Entry-fee proceeds from the Brad Sawyer Memorial Golf Tournament are used for maintenance and upgrades at Wildwood.