By Justin Fedich | The Selma Times-Journal

Some of Selma’s top golfers have their eyes on winning the Selma Country Club’s biggest prize this weekend.

The club is hosting its 86th annual Club Championship on Saturday and Sunday, which includes an individual competition and a member-member tournament.

The field is broken down into four categories: juniors, seniors, ladies and men. PGA golf professional Tommy Burns expects to have 65 to 80 participants this weekend and said the field should be competitive. Each category has its own winner, but the big winners are the low gross score champion and low net score champion.

The low net score includes a person’s handicap, while the low gross score is the number of strokes a golfer actually took to play a round.

Paul Garner has been the low gross winner of the club championship seven times and is expected to be among the frontrunners again this year.

Burns has seen Garner dominate the competition in recent years and does not foresee him slowing down this year.

“He’s such a fierce competitor,” Burns said. “Let’s put it this way. He’s not worried about winning. He’s worried about losing.”

Burns said other golfers he expects to do well include Will Pearce, Andy Stewart, Bain Hanning and Donnie Blanton. Burns said that Blanton has been playing some great rounds as of late even though he’s older than most of the competitors.

“He’s shot his age about six times, but he’s broken par every round for 10 rounds the last 10 rounds,” Burns said.

While the golf course will be filled with talent, the weekend isn’t all about competition. The finale to the tournament season begins with a social on Friday night at the Selma Country Club and ends with a banquet on Sunday night.

The men tee off at 1 p.m. both days and the ladies and juniors tee off at 8:30 a.m. Burns expects around 22 juniors to compete this weekend.

The tournament marks the end of the tournament season at the Selma Country Club, but that’s not the way Burns sees it.

“Most of the people look at it as the finale for the year, but for me it’s not the end, it’s the beginning of next year so that’s the way I look at it,” Burns said.