L. MACUNGIE TWP., Pa. — The start of the Jefferson Lehigh Valley Classic didn’t begin with the swing of a golf club. It started with the roar of F-16s.<\/p>\n
The “Folds of Honor Friday” opening ceremony welcomed military service members and first responders to the Lehigh Country Club ahead of the tournament’s tee-off, while also sharing the mission of the nonprofit.<\/p>\n
“We raise money for the spouses and children of our fallen military service members and first responders, as well as military service members and first responders who had a life changing injury,” said John “Hatch” Borneman, a Marine Corps combat veteran and the Mid-Atlantic Folds of Honor chapter president.<\/p>\n
After the opening came the first ceremonial swing.<\/p>\n
Build-up for the inaugural event has been taking place since Monday, marking a brand new PGA Tour Champions event.<\/p>\n
“It’s a 54-hole stroke play competition on the senior PGA tour,” said tournament director, Tommy Sullivan.<\/p>\n
Crews have been working around the clock to ensure the grounds are in tip-top shape for the competition bringing in big-name golfers.<\/p>\n
The gallery filled to watch the tournament unfold.<\/p>\n
“We watch golf on TV, but we’ve never been to a live event, so when this came available, I got tickets back in June already,” said Linda Reinhard, from South Whitehall Township.<\/p>\n
If you’re just getting into the sport, organizers say they made sure there was something for everyone.<\/p>\n
“Kids and families and folks that want to come watch football, we’ve created a space in our Wind Creek Tailgate Zone that you can watch football and golf at the same time,” explained Sullivan.<\/p>\n
The event also features food trucks, kids putting challenges, and an EY Sensory Center on the ninth green, thanks to Jefferson doctors.<\/p>\n
It’s the perfect start to the weekend-long tournament in Lower Macungie Township.<\/p>\n
Gates will open to the public at 8:30 a.m. Saturday, and on Sunday beginning at 7:30 a.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"L. MACUNGIE TWP., Pa. — The start of the Jefferson Lehigh Valley Classic didn’t begin with the swing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":868944,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[61345,65983,427,61346,99],"class_list":["post-868943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-_homepage_top_stories","tag-_sports_top_stories","tag-golf","tag-lehighvalley","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=868943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/868944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=868943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=868943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=868943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}