Downtown golf set for June 25

Cape Girardeau's first downtown golf fund-raiser is scheduled to take place June 25 at 1:30 p.m. The entry fee for the event is $25. Each person entering will receive an official tournament T-shirt (for the first 100 applicants) and an all-you-can-eat catfish buffet dinner afterwards at the Louis Lorimier Red House Museum. All proceeds will benefit the Red House Foundation.

Sign-up sheets will soon be available at downtown businesses and the Convention and Visitors Bureau. Participants are encouraged to sign up in teams of four players and bring a small square of carpet to minimize damage to the landscape and their golf clubs.

Tee-off for the event will be from courthouse park in front of the Common Pleas Courthouse. The first few holes will zigzag down the common pleas terraces. A half-way mark will be the hole at the CVB which actually cuts through the building. Refreshments will be on hand at the CVB for golfers needing to wet their beaks.

After the CVB, the course continues toward the river and one hole will stretch down the river park on the east side of the floodwall. The ninth and final hole ends at the Red House.

Organizer and councilman Charlie Herbst said the event was born out of Southeast Missourian editor Joe Sullivan's columns where Sullivan imagined driving a golf ball into downtown from a perch at the courthouse.

"This is all just for fun, in a lot of ways this is my tongue-in-cheek way of calling a bluff on Joe. So I just want this to be successful and raise some money for Jane Jackson and the Red House," he said.

Herbst cautions this will be an experiment with organizers trying to figure out what works and what doesn't. "We'll just see how it goes and if it takes off we'll expand it next year," he said.

Participants will be allowed their choice of two clubs, one being a putter. Holes will vary in distance from 25 to 75 yards. The holes themselves will be mainly urban landmarks like manhole covers or fire hydrants.

The balls are still being examined by organizers for suitability and cost. The balls to be ordered next week will either be made of dense foam or leather filled with goose feathers. Both types of balls are commonly used in similar events in Europe and are designed for maximum driveability with minimal danger of damage.

The Red House Foundation was set up with the ultimate goal of establishing a fund of $100,000. It has slightly more than $21,000 in its account. Red House curator Jane Randol Jackson hopes the interest from the fund can be used for structural repairs on the building someday.

tgreaney@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 245