36 teams of golfers — 180 golfers a day for two days — turn out for big Circle Bar ShootOut tournament

By SHARON LOSE/For The Herald — The 28^th Annual Circle Bar ShootOut, in memory of Ron Slaven, is now in the books after scores of golfers from near and far showed up this past weekend for what has become Circle Bar Golf Club’s largest fund-raiser.

Paul and Carrol Slaven founded the tournament and turned it over to Circle Bar in 2008. Since then it has become immensely popular

What a great turnout – 36 teams playing 18 holes last Saturday and Sunday.  That is 180 golfers each day.  Their families and friends were on hand for support and cheered their teams on.

Fortunately, even the weather was cool, so play was very enjoyable.

This tournament is not possible without the member volunteers supporting all areas of the tournament from set-up to take-down, trash pick-up to beer truck, par 3 hole games, burger grilling and clean up.  Members also generously loaned their personal golf carts to the event to further bring in revenue.

Hole sponsors from Oakridge and the Upper Willamette area included  Banner Bank, Big Mountain Pizza, Dairy Queen, Davidson Construction, Leve 7 Drywall, Oakridge Tire Center, Postal Pharmacy, Saxon Insurance and Willhite Real Estate.

Generous raffle sponsors included Rogue Valley Country Club, Tokatee Golf Club, Shadow Hills Country Club, Extreme Cornhole Games, Etc. and TaylorMade.

For the past 3 years, Circle Bar has been working on improving the greens, with the help of Tokatee’s Golf Club’s Ty Patton as consultant.  A host of volunteers helped every step of the way when Circle Bar needed hands-on support.  Ty is impressed with the many volunteers and their support of Circle Bar.  But for a non-profit golf club, that’s just what member volunteers do: Help when the call is made.

Sharon Lose of Oakridge is the clubhouse manager for Circle Bar.