The annual 'Golf Coast' pilgrimage

This business of going south to get one's game in shape really must work.

Baseball players have been heading to Florida for spring training for decades.

And a group of golfers from Southeast Missouri has been heading south for 24 years each March to get their swings in form. The annual Mississippi Golf Tour has brought more than 90 Southeast Missourians to the Gulf Coast over the years.

"It's a rite of spring," said Jerry Ford, the executive director of the Missouri Association for Retarded Persons and a longtime participant on the tour. "It really started with a bunch of guys who went to high school together.

"It's the unofficial start of the golf season for everyone."

Ford was one of 16 golfers who took part this year in the tour, which returned March 21. The trip annually is organized by Greg Brune, the director of athletic development at Southeast Missouri State. It happens to correspond with Southeast's spring break, which usually happens to coincide with St. Patrick's Day and the first days of the NCAA tournament.

"Initially," Brune said, "we had gone to Hot Springs, but the weather wasn't much different from here. We decided to go all the way to the coast, and there's a tremendous difference in the weather in March once you get south of Jackson, Miss."

After three years in Hot Springs, Ark., the group has headed to Biloxi for 21 years.

The Southeast Missouri golfers have seen changes in the region, primarily with the boom of casinos. The casinos have taken some businesses from downtown Biloxi but also have brought buffet restaurants, hotels and golf courses.

"The last six, seven, eight years it really has changed," Brune said. "There's a lot more traffic. The golf courses have gotten better. We played three different courses this year and there are some big-name designers."

The tour made two stops at Shell Landing, a course designed by Davis Love III. They also played Mississippi National Golf Club, which has hosted Nike Tour events.

"There are some great rates," Brune said. "Some people go to Phoenix or Florida and spend thousands of dollars but Biloxi is very affordable."

Al Spradling III, a lawyer and former mayor of Cape Girardeau, has returned to the Mississippi tour after taking some spring treks to Arizona.

"It's a festive atmosphere," Spradling said. "We spend quality time with the guys and get away from the rat race."

The trip's popularity sometimes made organization a challenge for Brune.

"It's really tough to manage anything more than 16 or 20 people," said Brune. "One year we took 32. We did all right but it wasn't too much fun for me. It can be disastrous trying to find everyone in the morning."

Said Spradling: "Well, Greg has a tendency to want to play golf at 7:30, 8 in the morning because he gets up at 4:30."

Even the early birds on the golf course can't escape some drawbacks.

"The bugs have just been eating us alive the last few years," Spradling said. "I don't know if they like some of us and not others. On a couple courses we were on, there were alligators out sunning themselves."

The tour mixes fun and games with a little bit of competition. Handicaps are calculated to create teams and pairings, and Sonny Underwood provides computerized scoring not long after the day's golf ends. The golfers compete in a variety of formats and have an awards ceremony at the last night of the trip.

"They don't take it all that serious," Ford said, "but the Brune boys go at lengths to make it interesting. They make the handicap numbers as even as possible."

With fond memories created each spring, it's no wonder the trip keeps the golfers buzzing all winter.

"The wives don't like it," Brune said. "We talk about it for four months of who's going, and my wife gets tired of hearing about it. But they all went to Tunica for the weekend."