Shelby's Spencer Jones won the first junior golf tournament he ever played - the 9-and-under division in the Cleveland County junior championship 10 years ago.

On Sunday, Jones won his last event as a junior and it was a huge one - the pro-am portion of the Champions Tour's First Tee Open at Pebble Beach, Calif.

Jones, a freshman at N.C. Central, teamed with Russ Cochran to shoot 21-under par in the best-ball competition, duplicating the feat of his friend Harold Varner of Gastonia in 2007.

In a preliminary event, Jones teamed with John Cook to win the five-hole Coca-Cola Challenge, a victory that was worth $15,000 to The First Tee of Cleveland County.

"It was just amazing," Jones said of his experience at Pebble Beach. "It was like everything was going right for me the whole week."

Playing Del Monte Golf Course on Friday then Pebble Beach on Saturday and Sunday, he shot 75-73-71 individually to help Cochran.

Jones earned his spot in the field by virtue of his membership in The First Tee program. He was selected based on his handicap, tournament results, academic standing and an interview process.

"Just being selected, I was happy with that," he said. "The rest of it was icing on the cake"

If you can't get to the World Golf Hall of Fame in St. Augustine, Fla., any time soon, you can just check out the SAS Championship on Sept. 24-26 at Prestonwood Country Club in Cary. Six Hall of Famers - Bernhard Langer, Hale Irwin, Nick Price, Curtis Strange, Tom Kite and Larry Nelson - are in the field for the Champions Tour event.

Kevin Kisner, who won the Mylan Classic on the Nationwide Tour last week, is the son of Steve Kisner, a standout athlete at Harding High in the late 1960s.

Nancy Lopez is scheduled to make a guest appearance Saturday as part of a 3 p.m. clinic at the Golf Club at Ballantyne in conjunction with the LPGA Teaching and Club Professional Championship being played there Sept. 12-15.

The Charlotte-based eGolf Professional Tour will begin its fall series this week at the Manor Classic presented by Office Depot in Farmville, Va., with the top points earner in the four fall events getting a spot in the European Tour's King Hassan II Trophy next March in Morocco.

The eGolf Amateur Tour is hosting 37 events around the country Sept. 11-13 in conjunction with the Stand Up To Cancer national television event in an effort to raise awareness and money for cancer research. The tour's goal is to raise $50,000.

Panther's Run Golf Links in Ocean Isle recently reopened with new Mini Verde greens after being closed through the summer. It's one of several courses through the Carolinas that decided to transition to new Bermuda grass greens this year.

OBSERVATIONS

Captain Corey Pavin said he went with a gut feeling in naming Rickie Fowler to the U.S. Ryder Cup team, the most surprising of his four captain's picks announced Tuesday.

He picked Fowler over Lucas Glover, Anthony Kim, Ben Crane, Charley Hoffman and who knows how many others for the final spot on the squad. That's assuming Tiger Woods, Stewart Cink and Zach Johnson were virtual automatics.

The Fowler pick is a risk. He still hasn't won on the PGA Tour and when he's been in contention - most notably the Waste Management Phoenix Open - he played it safe, which seems contrary to his style.

But it's a risk worth taking.

Pavin now has two players - Jeff Overton is the other - who have never won a PGA Tour event. A problem? Only if they lose.

Fowler has been making cuts but no noise since his second-place finish in The Memorial more than three months ago. However, he had a 7-1 career record in the Walker Cup, which speaks to his knack for match play.

This is likely the first of many Ryder Cup teams of which Fowler will be a part. If he can handle wearing the team uniforms rather than what he typically wears, I think he can handle the golf.

I can see Pavin pairing Fowler with Phil Mickelson in much the same way Paul Azinger put Kim and Mickelson together two years ago. Other than risking a charisma overload, it would give Fowler a Ryder Cup veteran alongside in Wales.

Interestingly, there's no chance of Pavin duplicating the pairings that worked so well for Azinger two years ago because the roster this time is so different.

Mickelson and Hunter Mahan were paired together in the Saturday four-balls at Valhalla, but otherwise everything will be different. Common sense says Pavin will pair Woods with Steve Stricker, a pairing that has clicked in the Presidents Cup and, for fun if nothing else, wouldn't you like to see Bubba Watson and Dustin Johnson paired together? How would that be for some alternate-shot power?

A month ago, the U.S. seemed to be an enormous underdog. It doesn't seem that way anymore.