Submitted Photo Members of The Vardon Golf Club and the Western ND Charity Pro-Am board pose with a check for $70,000 in donations after last year’s event.

Tom Lehman has a golf resume that would be the envy of all but the best golfers in the world. He has four wins on the Web.com Tour, five wins on the PGA Tour and eleven PGA Champions Tour victories. He won the 1996 Open Championship, to go along with three Ryder Cup appearances, which he captained in 2006 for the United States.

Before all of that, though, the Minnesota native won the Western ND Charity Pro-Am in 1982, and he has fond memories of those early days on the Dakota Tour.

In a 2018 interview, Lehman told the Golf Channel, “My memories of playing on the Dakotas Tour were all the great little towns. You know Minot, Bismarck, Yankton and Watertown, South Dakota.”

He continued “Places where the community really got behind the tournament. The clubs really supported it. The people came out to watch. They made a real spectacle of the it, and they made it real fun for everyone. It was a great, competitive tour. I loved it.”

Now his son Tom is on the Dakota Tour, and the younger Lehman will be among the 75 professionals in Minot this weekend for the 2023 Western ND Charity Pro-Am. In total, 11 of the top 12 and 18 of the top 25 on the Dakota Tour Money Leaders’ list will be playing with amateurs on Thursday and Friday before competing amongst themselves over the weekend for the tournament win.

This year’s tournament will once again be held at The Vardon Golf Club, between Minot and Burlington, and club professional Todd Lee couldn’t be more excited for this year’s event.

“The competition is so fierce on this Tour,” said Lee, who also is president of the charity board. “I just think back to when Tom Lehman won his first event here. He was struggling and he won here in 1982. That one win was able to springboard him into what happened, and if he’s not, he should be in the Golf Hall of Fame at some point.”

“You are going to see some good players and it’s just fun to watch them play,” said Lee.

Steve Jones, who won the event in 1983, went on to win the 1996 U.S. Open. In total, six former champions of the Pro-Am are on either the Korn Ferry, PGA or Champions Tour, including Mason Anderson, who won last year’s event.

There’s big money at stake for the pros as well. The total purse is $100,000, with the winner taking home $25,000, making the event one of the largest purses on the Dakota Tour.

Last year’s tournament raised over $70,000 in donations thanks to the support of the community. Over two dozen organizations were beneficiaries from last year’s event. Total donations over the event’s history now exceed $2 million benefiting local charities in western North Dakota.

The tournament is free to the public every day, and there are numerous activities besides golf for fans to enjoy. On Saturday, First Western Bank is sponsoring a community appreciation lunch that is free to the public. That night, the band Too Old to Stand will perform a free concert as well.

“They kind of hit a lot of places throughout the area,” said Zimmerman. “But they are a really, fun band, and it will be a nice evening to hang out outside and listen to music.”

The course itself will offer a challenge for both the amateurs and professionals alike. According to Lee, the par threes will be particularly challenging.

“The course was built in 1929. They didn’t envision anybody hitting the driver 360 yards,” said Lee. “We are strapped a little bit with the length of the course, but I think that’s kind of the charm of it too.”

“We have five par threes that are very challenging. The holes that do jump up and get them are the par threes, and if I had some advice for the kids, you know take advantage of the par fives, but don’t be going right after all the par threes. Par is not a bad score on them,” said Lee.

The first groups tee off at 7:30 a.m. this morning with some starting on the first tee and others starting on the tenth hole.