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The first annual Geoffrey Cornish Invitational Golf Tournament, an event designed to honor the extraordinary legacy of Mr. Cornish, has been scheduled for Aug. 15, over The Pines Course at The International Golf Club & Resort in Bolton, Mass.
Information and registration can be gathered by visiting the tournament website, www.geoffreycornishinvitational.org
Mr. Cornish died at his home in Amherst, Mass. on Feb. 10, at the ripe old age of 97. His 70-year career in the golf business resulted in more than 200 original course designs and another 100-plus renovations. His work and massive network of friends and associates has touched nearly everyone in American golf, in some fashion - especially in New England where he lived and based his business for 60 years.
Geoffrey Cornish Invitational Golf Tournament, the first of what will be an annual event, is meant to pay appropriate tribute this past president and Fellow of the American Society of Golf Course Architects, this co-author of The Architects of Golf (at one time the pioneering and definitive reference tool relating to course design worldwide), this advocate for agronomic advance who started his career as a young soil scientist for Stanley Thompson in 1935. Geoffrey Cornish's 70-year career in the golf business resulted in more than 200 original course designs and another 100-plus renovations.
This Aug. 15 event is sure to be a fitting celebration, the first of many, for the Man and his considerable legacy.
Indeed, the event's charitable beneficiary is the Geoffrey Cornish Scholarship Endowment at the University of Massachusetts Stockbridge School of Agriculture, an institution with which Mr. Cornish was affiliated for more than 50 years. It is hoped this annual event will represent an ongoing resource to the university programs Mr. Cornish so loved and fostered. The Geoffrey and Carol Cornish Fund for Enhanced Learning Opportunities provides a singular opportunity, each year, for a turf management student at the Stockbridge School of Agriculture - to serve an internship at one of the world's foremost golf courses. Upon the student's return to UMass, the Cornish Intern is expected to share what was learned with fellow students and faculty through an honors presentation.
It's appropriate that the Aug. 15 tournament and banquet will be conducted over The Pines Course at The International, Mr. Cornish's first solo, full-length, 18-hole design. It opened in 1956 and featured what was, for a time, the longest routing in golf -- the 8,400-yard Tiger Tees. [Organizers want to assure all potential attendees that tournament participants will not be playing the course from back there on Aug. 15.]
The cost per golfer will be $200, which includes golf, cart, box lunch and dinner banquet (non-golfers may attend the dinner banquet for $75.00).
Organizers want to further assure the field all of the International's cuisine remains under the direction of highly acclaimed Chef Joseph Brenner, who worked for many years directly with Todd English, one of the most decorated, charismatic chefs in the world. Those who cannot attend are encouraged to make a direct contribution to the Geoffrey Cornish Scholarship Endowment at the University of Massachusetts Stockbridge School of Agriculture.
