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Hallman said the RTJ Trail is
well-known outside Alabama,
but so are private courses like
Shoal Creek Golf and Country
Club and Greystone.
"When I travel around
the country and tell them
where I'm from, they identify
with a golf course or a golf
tournament in the state,"
Hallman said. "To have three
tournaments with three tours
is remarkable for a state our
size."
Perhaps the greatest
intangible when it comes
to the impact of golf is how
economic developers can use a
golf outing with a prospective
company to show them a
different side of Alabama.
Hallman loves to tell the
story of how officials with
Mercedes-Benz visited the
Regions Tradition – then
known as the
Bruno's Memorial
Classic – during
a 1992 trip to
the state. The
tournament had
huge crowds and
something that
was unexpected.
"We had an
unusual cold
front in August
that came through that week," Hallman said. "I think
we had a high temperature of 78 degrees. As we know,
Mercedes ended up choosing the site in Vance and
forever changed the direction of Alabama's economy. I
like to think golf had something to do with that."
Green indeed.
Bernhard Langer won the
2016 Regions Tradition.
Huge crowds attend the professional tournaments
in Alabama.
Colombia's Mariajo Uribe leads an international procession at the Yokohama Tire LPGA Classic in Prattville.
