Marian Hills Open hosts 88

Despite being a smoke filled weekend, 88 golfers from in and out of state showed up for the 2015 Marian Hills Open, held last weekend on Saturday and Sunday.

Those golfers formed 22 teams that played in Montana's largest scramble payout to date. Teams had two chances to win their share of a grand prize of $5,000.

The gross winners, meaning lowest score overall went to K.C. Kindle, DJ Kovach, Gordon Webb and Tony Kindle a team from Malta. The team won with a gross score 113 strokes.

The Kindle family has been amongst the most loyal golfers at Marian Hills and has been working tirelessly to get the event up and running for the last three months, so winning one of two grand prizes can be poetic justice.

"It was good (to win), but I was just trying to make the thing work," Tony Kindle told the PCN. "But to win it with my son and two real good friends, that was the best part about it."

It seems that the hard work to host the tournament has paid off as well.

"Everybody's said good things about the golf course and the tournament overall," Kindle said. "I've not heard of any issues."

Kindle expressed a few words of thanks.

"We would like to thank all of the sponsors that made it possible," he said. "It came out good. The weather held out and it was a good turnout."

The Harrison Ranch consisting of Frank Harrison, Frank Harrison Jr., Tim Kulbeck and Brock Copenhaver of Browning won the other $5,000 prize in the net category with a 5.35 handicap and a net score of 107.3.

"It feels pretty awesome," Frank Harrison said about the win. "We just got in on the tail end of it, during the last call. We got in and won it all."

The elder Frank Harrison has been golfing for 35 years and during that time has only been to Marian Hills once, 30 years ago.

"I used to rodeo here and now I just came down and shot a practice round, I thought it was pretty neat, pretty well maintained and the greens ran perfect," Harrison said.

Though he has been golfing for years, Harrison noted that there were a few challenging holes at Marian Hills.

"They were all tough," he said. "You have to keep them below the hole to make the putt going up."

The Harrison team made three eagles out of six possible.

"It was pretty awesome," Harrison said.

Harrison's game has heated up in 2015, as he sank his first hole in one on June 26.

The team bet on themselves in the Calcutta auction and won an additional $2,980. They price they paid in the auction was $700. They also won various prizes that equaled $150 in the 50-50 event held after the tournament.

"Well worth the trip," Harrison said. "I hope they invite me back to this next year.

Jaren Stiles had the most impressive shot of the tournament, a hole in one at hole four at around 11 a.m. on Sunday.

"It was exciting," Stiles said. "It was fun to watch it roll in."

Once he hit the ball, he knew he had put the ball right where he wanted it.

"I knew it was good," Stiles said. "I was hoping it would go in I figured it would be close, but I was hoping it would go in."

Even during the practice rounds held last Friday, out of town golfers were raving about the condition of the course.

Sean Knox, owner of Big Mouth BBQ in Great Falls brought his team consisting of himself, Brandon Jurassic, Mike Platt and Stephen Babb.

"This is what we love to do," Knox said. "We love to golf tournaments and frankly this is one of the largest cash tournaments in the entire state. The opportunity to come out here and take a little cash home is great, plus it's always fun to travel and check out a part of the world we haven't been to."

On his first practice shot at hole one, Knox nearly put up an Eagle from nearly one hundred yards away.

"So far we're absolutely impressed, the course looks beautiful, so we're really excited," Knox said. "We took a birdie on our first hole and found ourselves a little oasis on the Hi-Line, it's beautiful."

A majority of the golfers had nothing but nice things to say about Marian Hills and many believe that they will be back, which was the point on the Open.

"The reason we did this was because it's a great golf course but nobody knows we're here," Jane Ereaux said. "If we could raise awareness and let people know that we are here, hopefully they will come back and bring friends."