New Champions Will Be Crowned at The 101st Birchmont Golf Tournament

The final week of July always marks The Birchmont Tournament at Bemidji Town & Country Club. This year, they will be celebrating 101 years of their historic amateur golf tournament, and just like the prior 100 years, there’s no really big changes.

“We always want to keep improving,” said Rick Grand, the club’s director of golf operations. “Last year was incredible. Some of the extra things that went along with it that we can probably carry forward, the champion’s dinner, some great activities like that, but we’re really looking forward to another [great] tournament.”

Last year’s men’s champion Nate Deziel and women’s champion Emily Israelson (now Peterson) will not be back to defend their titles, and many other past champions and contenders will be back competing for the coveted crown.

“There will be two new champions,” said Grand. “Everyone else has a little better chance because they’re great players. We get a lot of people that come back year in, year out, but we also always have new faces and young people coming up.”

And according to Grand, the course itself is as green as it’s ever been and ready for golfers to tee it up for the start of qualifying rounds on Monday.

“I can’t envision turf conditions being any better,” he stated. “Oftentimes this time of year it’s very dry. But with the rain we’ve had, with the extra time we’ve had to prepare, it’s going to be a little bit different for the players, but it’s a great experience out there.”

The men’s two-day qualifying begins Monday, July 28th and continues on Tuesday, July 29th along with the women’s qualifying round. Wednesday, July 30th begins men’s and women’s match play, and the championship matches will be on Saturday, August 2nd.