By: MARK KAZLOWSKI - November 7, 2024
DALLAS – The word has gotten out. The Southwest Airlines Showcase at Cedar Crest has become a global affair. The second annual tournament featuring golfers from diverse and historically underrepresented groups will include a dozen international players when play starts Monday, Nov. 11.
“This year’s field is extremely strong, especially on the women’s side,” said Chuck Walker, the executive director of the I AM a Golfer Foundation, which hosts the tournament. “There’s going to be some pretty exciting golf played on both divisions, men and women.”
The field is made up of 21 men and 21 women of college age or younger playing in concurrent three-day, 54-hole stroke play tournaments. The Golf Channel will provide coverage each of the three days from 1:30-4:30 p.m. Central time.
“This event has become one of the largest events in Black golf,” said Ira Molayo, Cedar Crest’s general manager/director of golf and vice chairman of the I AM a Golfer Foundation. “One of my original desires was to show that excellence comes in all shapes and colors, all shapes and sizes. Providing this platform for Black and brown players is something that is a dream to me. It means so much to this community. Representation matters. So many dreams can be created by what people just see. This is an opportunity for us to create a platform so this community can see.”
The inaugural invitational tournament a year ago drew about 100 applications, Walker said. That number grew to 150-160 this year, thanks to social media and the three rounds being telecast by the Golf Channel.
“More young people were aware of the event this year than last year. Last year we had to go create the awareness. Now, in its second year, some of the people who didn’t get to play last year either saw it on TV or they saw it on social and found their way.
“We’ll keep building, keep creating awareness for it. At the end of the day, I would say we were able to engage the cream of the crop as it relates to the field.”
Allyn Stephens, a redshirt sophomore from Tulsa University, returns to defend her title. Gregory Odom Jr., who won the men’s tournament, turned professional. Three of his former Howard University teammates and six women from the Howard golf team are in the field.
Shyla Brown, a 16-year-old home-schooled junior from McKinney who has committed to Texas, returns after finishing second last year. She is one of six players with North Texas ties in the field, joining Xavier Bighaus, a senior at Colorado Christian from Melissa; Malisone Chanthapanya, a University of North Texas transfer from Texas Wesleyan who played at Saginaw High School; Morgan Horrell, a Howard junior who played at Hebron High School; Kennedi Lee, a senior at North Carolina A&T who played at Mansfield Lake Ridge; and Emily Odwin, an SMU junior from Barbados.
“The interest and the depth on both the men’s and women’s side is so strong we almost considered expanding the field,” Walker said, “but we’ll save that for next year if we can. And we realized that though this is an amateur invitational tournament, it’s really an all-star game and the one event that showcases these top players from diverse backgrounds. It’s their chance to take center stage in front of a national TV audience.”
Also in the spotlight will be historic Cedar Crest Golf Course, designed by renowned architect A.W. Tillinghast and opened in 1919. Several speakers at the tournament’s media day referred to the course as a hidden gem. Among the notable tournaments Cedar Crest has hosted are the 1927 PGA Championship won by Walter Hagan and the 1954 United Golfers Association National Negro Open won by Charlie Sifford. Bronze statues of both men stand in Cedar Crest’s Legends Plaza to commemorate their victories and Sifford’s breaking the PGA Tour’s color barrier.
The event was the vision of long-time PGA Tour executive Ric Clarson, who serves as tournament director, and has evolved into a three-pronged purpose.
“After Ric shared his dream, it quickly evolved into and event with a purpose including three core objectives,” Walker said.
“No. 1, we wanted to showcase the tremendous talent that’s out there all around the country;
“No. 2, we wanted to showcase – at the time – this hidden gem and historical golf course. We’re working to fully polish the jewel.
“And No. 3 was to raise some meaningful support for the work that we do on a daily basis at the I AM a Golfer Foundation with our young people, especially paid internships and college scholarships.”
Molayo, Walker, Clarson, and Dave Ridley, the chairman of I AM a Golfer Foundation, and other tournament officials did the extensive legwork required to create a tournament worthy of the course’s history.
“We made a concerted effort to get the word out about how special, if not important, our event was going to be,” Walker said. “It was and is cause-related. It’s more than just a golf tournament. We visited five or six other tournaments throughout the year to recruit players and spent countless hours educating players, families and coaches about what we were trying to accomplish for their benefit, as well as the foundation’s, historic Cedar Crest, and southern Dallas.”
ABOUT THE TOURNAMENT
Southwest Airlines Showcase at Cedar Crest
When: Monday-Wednesday, Nov. 11-13
Where: Cedar Crest Golf Course, 1800 Southerland Ave.
Tee times: 9 a.m. each day
TV: Golf Channel 1:30-4:30 p.m. (Dallas time)
Field: 21 men and 21 women from diverse and underrepresented groups of college age and younger.
Format: 54-hole individual stroke play.
Par: 71
Yardage: 6,510 for men, 5,805 for women
Admission: Free. Register at iamagolfer.com
PLAYERS TO WATCH
Men
Xavier Bighaus
Notable: The Colorado Christian senior grew up in Melissa, Texas. He plans to enter Q-school and pursue a professional golf career after he graduates in May 2025. He was a part of the 2024 Division II national championship team.
Kci Lindskog
Notable: The Texas Southern senior was born and raised in Jakarta, Indonesia. He was introduced to golf by his father who played on the Asian Tour for 13 years with multiple victories including the 2002 Volvo Masters. His first name is pronounced “Casey.”
Jayden Lizama
Notable: The 17-year-old senior at Franklin High School in Elk Grove, Calif., has committed to Gonzaga.
He has made 10 holes in one.
Godfrey Nsubuga
Notable: The 24-year-old junior at Winston-Salem State is one of three Ugandans in the men’s field. He became the first man from his country to play in the US Amateur this year. He said he started playing golf with jelly tins as my golf balls and tree branches shaped like irons as my golf clubs. He gained access to the golf course as a forecaddie and later enrolled in a junior program.
Nikolas Pitiris
Notable: The junior at Arkansas-Pine Bluff was born and raised on the island of Cyprus. He practiced
and played golf in a United Nations Buffer zone, where the course was dirt and the greens were sand. The course was laid out around a 50-year-old abandoned airport.
Women
Allyn Stephens
Notable: The redshirt sophomore at Tulsa University transferred from Texas A&M. The Houston native is the defending champion, shooting a 9-under 204 and winning going away by 10 shots. Was rated #3 in Texas in 2022 having won the AGJA Shreveport Junior in 2021 and finishing T9 in the 2022 Texas Women’s Amateur. Finished T10 in American Athletic Conference Championship as a freshman.
Emily Odwin
The 20-year-old SMU junior transferred from Texas. She has represented Barbados since she was 11 and is a four-time Caribbean Amateur Junior Golf Champion. She represented Barbados in the 2018 Central American & Caribbean Games, the 2019 Pan American games and the 2023 Central American & Caribbean Games. In 2021 she became the first Barbadian female to qualify for the U.S. Girls Junior Championship and the U.S. Women's Amateur.
Shyla Brown
Notable: The 16-year-old home-schooled junior from McKinney has committed to Texas. She is a member of the inaugural USGA US National Development Team. She won the Kathy Whitworth Invitational, made it to the round of 16 at the USGA Junior Girls Amateur and was a AJGA Rolex All-American this year.
Malisone Chanthapanya
Notable: The 21-year-old University of North Texas senior transferred from Texas Wesleyan, where she was three-time All-American. She got her start at First Tee of Fort Worth and played for Saginaw High School.
Emma Henningsson
Notable: The 21-year-old junior at the University of South Dakota grew up in a small town in Sweden. She had a hole in one during a course-record round of 63 in last year’s tournament. She plans to turn professional and qualify for the Ladies European Tour.
Kendall Jackson
Notable: The Howard University senior from Pearland, Texas, was heavily featured in the ESPN+ docuseries “Why Not Us: Howard Golf” where she was featured in six of the eight 30-minute episodes.
She has won six collegiate events including the 2024 PGA Works Collegiate Championship at TPC Sawgrass, the 2023 Lady Bison Invitational held at Baltimore Country Club The East Course, and the 2021 and 2022 SAS HBCU Championship at Prestonwood Country Club.
Kennedi Lee
Notable: The senior at North Carolina A&T transferred from Texas Southern. She grew up in Mansfield and learned to play golf at Cedar Crest Golf Course under the coaching of Maulana Dotch when the First Tee of Dallas was based at Cedar Crest. She went to Lake Ridge High School. She played in the inaugural Southwest Airlines Showcase. She interned with Cedar Crest and the I AM a Golfer Foundation this summer and was a foundation scholarship recipient.
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