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Posted March 21, 2002 2002 schedule without big gallery event By Jim Riley Herald staff writer Spring won't officially begin until March 21, but for those in the Mid-Columbia who like to play golf it begins with the publishing of the annual golf schedule. While there remains hundreds of open tournaments available to challenge anyone's game, the major one to watch won't be back this year. After 11 straight years with a tournament on the second-best professional golf tour on the planet, the Hogan/Nike/Buy.com Tri-Cities Open will not be back this year at Meadow Springs Country Club in Richland. Increasing purses and the bad post-Labor Day date that made it difficult to attract new sponsorship dollars led to the tournament being replaced on the schedule by the Utah Classic. It will be interesting to see how that event handles a week made short by a national holiday. While Meadow Springs members had a love/hate relationship with an event that took away their golf course for a week and made it a far less-friendly place to play for weeks while the Tour grew the rough and hardened the greens, the tournament provided a rare opportunity to peer into the future of the PGA Tour. Although the attendance wasn't great, it will be missed by all those who did attend. There have been changes in the Meadow Springs pro shop as well, with Jeff Ballard now director of golf and Chris Peterson head professional. No face is more familiar on the Tri-City golf scene than that of Joe Dubsky. Joe-the-Pro spent 27 years operating Sun Willows in Pasco before leaving last year to run amateur tournaments and coach girls basketball at River View High. This year he'll be back in the pro shop, working with head professional Matt Mandell at Canyon Lakes. Ryan LaVoie of Pasco will split his time between pro tours this year while two other top players, Mike Combs and Scott Johnson, have added new jobs. LaVoie has a conditional card on the Canadian Tour this year and plans to play up north and on the Golden Bear Tour in Florida with Clint Jensen of Richland. Combs, the Kennewick pro who cashed his first check from the PGA Tour when he made the cut in the Air Canada championship last year, is the new manager/head golf professional at The Golf Club in Kennewick. Combs had one more year remaining from a group sponsoring him to play tour golf, but decided to take the new job. "I'll still play in all the northwest majors and the pro-ams," Combs said. "The bulk of my duties will be inside, but I will also do some teaching." Johnson, the former Kamiakin and Arizona State player who played in the U.S. Open last year, is working for Prudential/Now Realty when he isn't teaching golf at Horn Rapids in Richland. Johnson plans to play the Cascade Tour, where he won the money title and an entry in to the PGA Tour qualifying school last year, as well as several state opens. He'll also try some Monday qualifying on the Buy.com Tour. The cost to play golf in the Tri-Cities, always a bargain when compared to other areas of the Northwest, has gone up slightly. It will cost you a buck more ($26 during the week and $33 on the weekends) to play at Columbia Point in Richland and $2 more to play at Canyon Lakes in Kennewick ($26 and $36) or at Sun Willows in Pasco ($20 and $26). Columbia Park, the par-3 course in Kennewick located on the Columbia River and run by pro Jerry Asher, still is $12 and should be a lot greener once the new irrigation system gets running. Pasco Golf Land, located near the airport, has three pros (Jeff Hendler, Todd Sprong and Craig Lanning) and is planning a few night events this year. One course even has a new name. Black Rock Creek, formerly known as Lower Valley, is between Grandview and Sunnyside. The new pro is Jeff Bender and he is planning a number of events designed to draw play from the Tri-Cities.