WHEELING - Right off the top, let me say this is in no way an insult to Wheeling or any kind of lobbying attempt to try to steal a state championship away from the Friendly City and bring it to the Capital City.
This is not a Super Six-like issue and I have no interest in getting into a shouting match with anyone over travel, hotels or whether Adelphia or Undo's is a better place to eat.
Because let's face it, sports were not created equal. And if the Super Six moved tomorrow to Charleston, Huntington or Timbuktu, the field is still going to be 100 yards between goal lines. Just like the rims at the Charleston Civic Center are 10 feet off the ground. Just like the mound at Appalachian Power Park is 60 feet, 6 inches from home plate.
But golf is an entirely different animal where the where of where you're playing can be as big a deciding factor as the person who's playing.
Anyone with any experience in West Virginia prep golf over the past couple of decades or so can tell you the grumbling starts as soon as the season does, with several coaches and players from outside the Wheeling area already dreading the possible trip to the Jones Course at Oglebay Resort that awaits at the end of the season and ultimately decides prep golf supremacy.
But why?
Don't give me travel, because no matter where a state championship is held, someone is going to have to drive several hours to get there.
Most point to the course, a twisting, turning, hilly monster with lightning-fast, undulating greens awaiting the end of long, sloped fairways. Having been fortunate enough to play on and cover golf at nearly all of the state's premier courses, I can tell you it's as stiff a challenge as you will find anywhere within the state's borders, and the scores reflect that.
Consider that during Tuesday's first round, 120 players took to the Jones representing the best players in the state and, at the end of the day, the lowest rounds were a pair of 4-over-par 75s turned in by Cabell Midland's Andy Michael and Wheeling Central's Kyle Wensel. But every player is faced with the same course.
I've also heard about the notoriously bad weather (although this year and last year have been beautiful) as well as the demand of walking up and down steep slopes for two straight days
But, a problem really exists when all things aren't equal, and when you're holding an event at one course every year - especially one that rewards local knowledge in terms of drives, approach-shot placement and green reading as much as the Jones Course does - it would certainly seem to reward those who play the course often.
I am not a good golfer. I'm a 15 handicap on my best of days.
But I can tell you that if you hit the right edge of the green on the par-3 fourth hole at Edgewood Country Club and the flag is in the front, the ball will filter straight to the cup. I can tell you that holes 10 and 11 at Twisted Gun Golf Course play much longer than they look from the tee box. I can tell you that the par-3 No. 4 at the old Sandy Brae Golf Course is an easy 6-iron or stout 7-iron depending on the wind, even from a yardage that usually requires a 4-hybrid.
Those realizations came by trial and error, by playing those courses over and over again and failing repeatedly. Many players who embark to Wheeling are learning those tough lessons on the fly at a golf course that is brutally unforgiving of mistakes, especially on greens that can be tough to read and even tougher to judge speed all while having their scores negatively affected.
Don't believe local knowledge means that much? Consider six straight Class AAA medalists have all been from Wheeling Park, with Thadd Obecny, Cole Hand and Dylan Wojcik each winning two in a row. The aforementioned Wensel is also the defending Class A champion. Park had also won four out of five team titles until Midland knocked them off last year.
That's to take nothing from those players or teams. Having been fortunate enough to see Obecny, Hand and Wojcik play as well as interview them all at least once and Obecny several times, I can tell you all are great players and could easily have won the state tournament wherever it was played. Do an Internet search of them, their accolades and resumes through junior golf, high school and even college speak for themselves.
But I can also tell you, none of them if being honest would deny that familiarity at least helped.
So I decided to kick the tires a bit on Tuesday and talked to Secondary School Activities Commission executive director Bernie Dolan, assistant executive director Wayne Ryan and Bill Gillispie, now with the SSAC but a longtime golf coach at Charleston Catholic before that.
The tournament used to rotate before it was moved to Wheeling in 2003, with places like Glade Springs Resort in Daniels and Guyan Country Club in Huntington holding the event. The thinking from here is that a rotation would seem to be the best possible solution from a competitive standpoint, perhaps even between three or four courses around the state that offer a variety of challenges that would give no team or individual any kind of permanent advantage.
In talking to Dolan, golf is just like any other sport and is bid on for four-year periods. Golf is now in its first of four years, meaning it wouldn't even be eligible to come out of Wheeling until after 2019.
But perhaps the most surprising fact was that to Gillispie's knowledge, golf hasn't even been bid on by anywhere else for at least 13 years. And while Dolan said the four-year plan for golf is something that could be discussed if necessary, it's hard to bring those talks up if no other location is interested. Or, maybe no other location is interested because of the four-year requirement.
Look, a little discussion is never a bad thing, and if anything, it's all I'm trying to start here. By all accounts across the board, Wheeling and Oglebay Resort do a fine job of hosting and provide a great experience to kids and teams alike on a year-in, year-out basis. Even if there was a rotation, personally I would like having Wheeling in it as the tough test that it is. And if the tournament was permanently entrenched in Charleston or Beckley or anywhere else, I would still contend a rotation would be a better solution.
But until anywhere else shows significant interest or the SSAC decides the four-year rule can be bent, especially for golf, the ball seems to be on Wheeling's green for the foreseeable future. Where it breaks from here is anyone's guess.
Contact Ryan Pritt at 304-348-7948 or ryan.pritt@wvgazettemail.com. Follow him on Twitter @rpritt.