TUNICA, Miss. (WMC) -Last year, Desoto County Golf head coach Andy Odle had an idea for a tournament unique to the Mid-South.
“The goal was to have (a) Tennessee-Mississippi kind of border war,” Odle expains. “Border Bash type of thing.”
After a successful first edition of the Border Bash tournament, it’s back for volume two this Monday at Tunica National.
“Everybody when they left, they said ‘Once you have the date for next year, we’re in,’” Odle says.
The tournament has grown in year two. 18 boys and 11 girls teams will tee off on Monday, featuring squads from Nashville, to the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and of course a healthy contingent of schools from Shelby and Desoto County.
“I had a few teams last year pass it up,” Odle says. “It was early in the school year, they didn’t want to miss school, this, that, and the other.
“Then they saw what type of event we put on and were actually knocking down my door to play this year. So, we’re sold out with a waiting list.”
A big reason for that? It’s almost impossible to replicate competition this good this early in the season.
”Yeah the level of competitiveness is the main draw,“ says Walker Wilkinson, the golf head coach at Lewisburg High School. ”You don’t get a lot of that in the regular season.
“So going into the end of the year for state and everything, getting that experience early on definitely helps out.”
“Top tier, state-tournament caliber,” says Odle on the level of competition. “All the teams, especially on the boys side that you’ll see Monday will qualify for their state tournament in October, and the same with Mississippi.
“So, we’re kind of having a major to kick off the season.”
Odle has big ambitions for the Border Bash moving forward.
“Ideally I would like to be able to have two separate events,” he explains. “I would like to have a one-day event for boys only, to where we can expand it to 25-30 boys teams. Then the next week or something like that, have the same thing on the girls side.”
The Border Bash is positioned to be one of the premiere golf tournaments in the Mid-South very soon, if it isn’t already.
“I think it’s already in year two one of those,” says Collierville golf head coach Mike Kent. “Again, you just don’t see tournaments that bring in people outside the region all at one time. It’s very unique.”
“It’ll be the place to be for college coaches for the start of the season,” Wilkinson says. “It’ll be the one you wind up coming to.”
The 2025 Border Bash tees off at Tunica National at 10 a.m. on Monday.
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