The Starburst Junior Golf Classic is no longer a Waco-only affair.

For the first time this year, five of the eight sites for the large junior golf tournament will be outside McLennan County. Among those hosting rounds are Temple’s Wildflower Country Club, Whitney’s White Bluff Country Club, Salado’s Mill Creek Golf and Country Club, Marlin Country Club and Killeen’s Stonetree Golf Club.

The remaining three sites are all Waco venues: Cottonwood Creek, Ridgewood and Twin Rivers. It’s one fewer Waco course than last year, when James Connally Municipal Golf Course also was used. The tournament also used one fewer site overall last year.

Golfers practice before competition at the Starburst Junior Golf Classic last year. Almost half of the Waco-based tournament’s rounds will be played outside of McLennan County.
Rod Aydelotte/Waco Tribune-Herald, file

Of the 39 total rounds scheduled between both boys’ and girls’ brackets, 19 will be played at one of the three Waco sites. That includes five of the six boys’ and girls’ championship division rounds, which are the event’s highest classifications.

Now entering its 12th year, the event begins today and runs through Wednesday.

Before last year, sites outside the Waco area were used mostly for overflow. It’s a decided change for tournament organizers, who are farming out event sites more than ever before.

“Our players and our caddies said, ‘We’re not coming back unless we play on better golf courses,’ ” said Steve Smith, the Waco Chamber of Commerce’s senior vice president for sports and special events. “They are paying customers, and we listen to them.”

Last year, in addition to the four Waco courses, the Starburst used Sammons Park Golf Club in Temple along with Wildflower Country Club and White Bluff.

Salado, Marlin and Killeen are all hosting sites for the first time this year.

“When we started this 12 years ago, all of our golf courses were in Waco,” Smith said. “As the tournament grew, we had to look for as many golf courses as we could that fit their standards.”

The tournament has grown from 400 participants upon its inception in 1998 to a capped 1,030 this year, making it one of the largest junior tournaments in the world. The three-day event encapsulates 10 boys’ and girls’ age divisions, running from the 7-8 age group to the championship division.

Jordan Spieth, a 16-year-old Dallas native, made history a few weeks ago by becoming the sixth-youngest player to make the cut at a PGA Tour event at the HP Byron Nelson Championship. He won the Starburst at 13 three years ago.

“That was nice to have one of our former players do so well at such a young age,” Smith said.

Among those nonplussed by the territorial expansion of the event is Ray Lamb, owner of Waco’s The Lake County Club.

Lamb said he received assurances his facility would be in the rotation this year after it wasn’t used last year. Several weeks before this year’s event, tournament officials reviewed his course and decided not to use it, leaving the country club out about $14,000 in revenue, Lamb said.

“They told us that our golf course wasn’t good enough,” he said.

Smith said the growing stature of the event forced tournament officials to branch out to more venues, regardless of the location.

“If it was our choice, we’d use only Waco golf courses,” Smith said. “But the players said we wanted better golf courses, so that’s why we had to make a move.”

For owners like Lamb, the concern isn’t just for the loss of golf and the subsequent revenue hit incurred by his own course.

“It’s a situation where they’re not only moving the tournament out of Waco,” Lamb said, “but they’re moving it out of McLennan County.”

New Connally golf course officials are busy making their course viable as an option for the Starburst again.

Whenever that is, it won’t be this year.

“We basically opted this year not to pursue that because we’ve got more work to do,” said Paul Woodfin, the vice president of administrative and financial services for Texas State Technical College.

The Connally golf course’s previous lease-holder backed out of his agreement earlier this year, and TSTC officially assumed control March 6. After serving as a host site for the Starburst last year, the facility was mired in a state of disrepair, with both the greens and fairways needing significant improvements.

So instead of throwing their name in the ring for the Starburst, school officials withdrew their consideration to focus on renovation, possibly in a gear-up toward re-entering the event next year.

“Under the previous operator, they had bad experience last year,” Woodfin said. “We took over the course in March. We are focused on improving the course and getting it back up to a higher standard. We’ve made a lot of headway, but we have a lot of work to do.”