Treasure Valley golf notebook: Bad economy good for Boise Open - ticket sales are up

The Albertsons Boise Open is ahead of last year's pace for ticket sales through local charities.

The 130-plus charities have sold $421,000 worth of tickets, tournament promoter Jeff Sanders said Wednesday. Last year, the charities had sold $121,000 worth of tickets at this point, Sanders said.

The final sales last year were $625,000. The charities keep 100 percent of the proceeds they generate. They also share a $50,000 bonus pool provided by Sara Lee and SuperValu.

The difficulty of the economy might be helping the ticket sales, Sanders said, because the TICKETS Fore CHARITY program is a risk-free way for charities to generate much-needed cash.

"There's no investment - no financial investment," Sanders said. "It's a lot of hard work and time."

The Boise Open began the program in 2001. The PGA Tour has been so impressed that it has hired Jeff Sanders Promotions to help implement it at about 20 tournaments on the PGA, Champions and Nationwide tours.

At least one LPGA Tour event is using the program, too.

"We can't do more tournaments, so it's extremely gratifying to be able to help 20 tournaments," Sanders said.

The Boise Open, which is in its 20th year, is Sept. 17-20 at Hillcrest Country Club. The event again will not have a skins game because of the economy, Sanders said.

"We have to be mindful of expenses," he said.

MEN'S AM FILLS UP

Removing the qualifiers for the IGA Men's Amateur resulted in a flood of entries in the past week, filling the field with more than 140 players, executive director Jim Durkin said. He is taking entries for a waiting list.

The Men's Am is July 17-19 at Falcon Crest Golf Club in Kuna. Durkin dropped the idea of using qualifiers after seeing the response this year.

DELAET WINSIN CANADA

Former Boise State golfer Graham DeLaet earned his second Canadian Tour win Sunday at the ATB Financial Classic in Calgary. His other win came last August.

In between, DeLaet finished second three times on the Canadian Tour and twice on the South African Tour. He is ranked 255th in the world, up from 489th at the end of 2008, and is third on the Canadian Tour money list.

"I have been playing with a lot of confidence for the past year and knew that if I kept playing like this, the wins would come," DeLaet told Canadian media after the win.

CAPITAL HIGHGRAD REACHES PGA

Mitch Lowe survived a playoff Wednesday in the PGA Professional National Championship in New Mexico to earn one of 20 exemptions to the PGA Championship. Lowe tied for 16th in the 72-hole event.

The PGA Championship - the fourth major - is Aug. 13-16 at Hazeltine National Golf Club in Minnesota.

Chadd Cripe: 377-6398