The Honors Course will be the site of a premier men's college golf tournament hosted by UTC in September
photo by Paul Payne
Since its inception in 1983, The Honors Course has steadfastly adhered to the original ethos of founder Jack Lupton in serving as a bastion of excellence solely devoted to amateur golf.
The spectacular Pete Dye designed layout located in Ooltewah has hosted a plethora of national and state championships in fulfilling Lupton’s original vision.
In addition to last year’s U.S. Senior Amateur, The Honors Course has entertained numerous other USGA events, a pair of NCAA Men’s Division I Championships – including Tiger Woods final collegiate victory in 1996 – as well as Curtis Cup matches and multiple Tennessee men’s and women’s amateur championships. The U.S. Women's Amateur is slated for 2026, and the U.S. Amateur is scheduled to return in 2031.
That impressive résumé will be further bolstered this fall when a premier men’s collegiate tournament, The Invitational at The Honors Course, will take place September 14-16. The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga will serve as the host school, with other participants including Auburn, College of Charleston, Clemson, Duke, Marquette, Oklahoma, Ole Miss, Pepperdine, Tennessee, Vanderbilt and Virginia.
The 54-hole tournament will create an opportunity to parade the complement of championship caliber golf courses in the Chattanooga area that will serve as hosts on a rotational basis. Other future sites include Chattanooga Golf and Country Club, Council Fire Club, The Farm Golf Club, and Lookout Mountain Club.
“We, along with the other clubs, are committed at a high level to make this a quality event,” said Henrik Simonsen, Director of Golf at The Honors Course. “We know that if Chattanooga’s men’s and women’s teams are having success, it's good for golf in Chattanooga. Everybody wins that way. We're all about promoting the game however we can, and this is one way I think we can make a difference.”
The Honors Course was the site of a highly-regarded women’s collegiate tournament in March won by Florida, and Simonsen views this as an opportunity to continue to honor the legacy of Lupton, who died in 2010.
“Mr. Lupton established The Honors Course to honor amateur golf, and one of the many ways to do that was to host local, regional, state and national types of events,” Simonsen said. “That's why we're excited and honored to kick off a program that can help golf in Chattanooga by promoting UTC’s golf programs.”
The event fulfills a desire UTC men’s head golf coach Blaine Woodruff imagined when he arrived in Chattanooga three years ago after serving as an assistant at Pepperdine.
“I've envisioned this for three years now, and to finally see it coming to fruition and becoming a reality is really exciting, especially just knowing how much The Honors symbolizes amateur golf,” Woodruff said. “In a city like Chattanooga where golf is so big, I'm just really excited to have an event like this for our community.
“We’re going to have the best of the best in college golf competing, and it presents an opportunity to showcase, in my opinion, one of the best golf courses in the country,”
When choosing an optimal date for the inaugural event, Woodruff experienced some good fortune prior to extending invitations to participating schools.
“There’s so many good events that I was trying to figure out how I could attract an elite field,” Woodruff said. “A week after I set the dates, they canceled the Valero Collegiate in Texas. That was huge, and I basically invited the top six teams from their field. It ended up being a really good field that’s going to be one of the top three tournaments next year.”
The Honors Course has a legacy of serving as a trailblazer in Tennessee golf annals fueled by Lupton’s passion for excellence and his relationship with Dick Horton, who served as executive director over both the professional and amateur governing bodies in Tennessee for 34 years as well as 27 years as president of the Tennessee Golf Foundation.
“I think back of the stories that Dick Horton talks about when he and Mr. Lupton became very close in everything related to golf in Tennessee,” Simonsen said. “Lupton ended up donating the money to build the Golf House Tennessee, and then he invited the Tennessee Golf Association to have their state amateur championships here that opened the doors for the best clubs in all of Tennessee that were previously reluctant to host the Tennessee Amateur. We simply want to continue to be good stewards of amateur golf that reflects the core values of The Honors Course.”
Paul Payne can be emailed at paulpayne6249@gmail.com