OSSAA to allow high schools three fall golf events

By Ken MacLeod

After years of pleas by various coaches to utilize the best weather season in Oklahoma, the Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Association has relented a bit and there will be an abbreviated fall golf season starting in the fall of 2024.

Corey Burd, head coach at Owasso for the past 10 years and also Director of Golf at Bailey Ranch Golf Course in Owasso, has been making this case for as long as he’s been a coach. It wasn’t until a new OSSAA golf director – Trinity Johnson – came on board that anyone seemed to pay he, Gregg Grost and other influential high school coaches any heed.

Beginning this fall, high schools will be allowed to play three of their nine regular season events in the fall prior to Nov. 1. That means three events not held on dormant Bermuda grass in high winds with low temperatures, as are the typical spring conditions as school try to cram nine events, regionals and state championships into a window from late March to early May.

Burd said he already has two events on the calendar for Owasso this fall, a Class 6A preview he will host on Oct. 8 at Bailey Ranch and one Grost, head coach at Norman, will host on Sept. 27.

Burd said the fall dates will find the players in top form coming off all their summer events, the courses fully grown in, the weather milder and as a course operator he will have more flexibility for the fall events.

The Oklahoma Golf Association has long had a full slate of Oklahoma Junior Golf Tour events in the fall because high schools were not competing. Those weekend events will continue and not be in conflict with any high school events which are held on week days. Bailey Ranch is hosting an OJGT event on Sept. 6-7.