The signs of the season winding down gently present themselves each August. The eighth month of the year was coincidentally when the Kentucky PGA Section’s major tournaments were all contested in 2019 which began with Williams’ win at Kearney Hill in the Kentucky Open.

Following that, it was the ladies’ turn for the spotlight. Frankfort Country Club hosted the Kentucky Women’s Open on August 6-7. The leaderboard was jampacked at the top with seven golfers finishing four shots of the winning score, but Kasey Miller prevailed having shot 145 (+1) in the 36-hole contest.

One week later the tour of Kentucky took folks to Houston Oaks Golf Course in Paris for this year’s edition of the Kentucky Senior Open. Steve Cox and Bruce Oldendick, each of whom had stellar seasons, collided in a sudden-death playoff between arguably the top Senior Professionals in the state. Cox would prevail on this occasion, making birdie on the par-five 1^st hole at Houston Oaks to capture his first victory in this storied championship.

It was off to the southwest part of Kentucky the next week for the Kentucky PGA Professional Championship at Indian Hills Country Club in Bowling Green. The dynasty of success Blake Watts has built in this tournament this decade came through once more as he captured the title for the fourth time dating back to 2010. He and his brother Logan, along with Grover Justice earned automatic spots in next year’s PGA Professional Championship in Austin, Texas thanks to the high finishes for each of them.

The final week of August marked another showdown between Oldendick and Cox with the staging of the Kentucky Senior PGA Professional Championship. Dale Hollow Lake was the venue where Oldendick was able to upstage Cox on this occasion, beating him by two strokes while Greg Basham came one stroke shy of Oldendick’s total. This win for Oldendick was his second straight win in this championship after also winning it in 2018.

The Clark’s Pump-N-Shop Kentucky Senior Amateur marked the final key championship for the 50+ contingent as the top senior amateurs fled east to Bellefonte Country Club where it was Scott Ray who won the top prize in an exciting finish. He joined Jim Volpenhein and Gary Backlund in a three-man playoff to determine the champion and Ray outlasted them in two holes of sudden death for his signature win of the season.

The month’s KGA Am Series event was held at Bowling Green Country Club on a very rainy day in which there was serious doubt as to whether the event would be able to be concluded. Thanks to mother nature’s cooperation and some speedy golf, things were settled on time and produced a winning group of Andy Roberts, Andy Strother, Kevin Auton, Jeff Egger, Gary Backlund, Gary Stone, Elmo Greer, and Gary Minch. For those counting, yes, there were three different people named Gary who won.

The Kentucky Golf Foundation also hosted its biggest fundraiser of the year with the annual Youth on Course Pro-Am presented by ISCO at Valhalla Golf Club. 148 people participated in this fantastic tournament making it possible for Kentucky’s youth to continually utilize the Youth on Course program.