How the Sanderson Farms Championship tried to give patrons their Ole Miss-Alabama fix

Spectators roamed the pathways at Country Club of Jackson during the third round of the Sanderson Farms Championship on Saturday.

It was a nice turnout on a day with occasional light rain. The weather was never destined to run interference nearly as much as the college football showdowns that were at the front of most patrons’ minds.

The crowd began to thin by 2:30 p.m., when No. 12 Ole Miss kicked off against No. 1 Alabama. Shortly after that game ended, Mississippi State kicked off against Texas A&M just after 5:30 p.m.

“That was herds, everybody was herding out of here,” said Brett Barham, a Sanderson Farms Championship spectator and 1994 Mississippi State graduate. “Everybody was like a pack of wolves, headed in groups out to find the game whether they were leaving to watch it, or going to some of the areas where they were presenting the game.”

Ole Miss game commenced was just 194 miles west of Country Club of Jackson, at Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa, and from a national perspective, it was the biggest game of the week in the SEC.

Entering the week, Sanderson Farms Championship director Steve Jent told the Clarion Ledger that part of the reason he scheduled this year’s event on this weekend was because Mississippi State and Ole Miss both played on the road.

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“Obviously, I can’t impact their schedule, but we do like it being weekends when they’re not at home,” Jent said. “We’re just going to keep doing what we’re doing.”

The approach Jent used this year with the tournament was to embrace the existence of SEC football as opposed of trying to compete with it.

Saturday’s theme called for spectators to wear their college colors and visit the tailgate-style areas throughout the course to watch the live football games.

One of those areas was Walker’s Cay, where spectators could buy food or grab a beer with several outdoor tables and two big screens broadcasting games. It was an area Ridgeland resident Tyler Malouf said she didn’t know about until she sat in the grandstand watching golfers on the 18th hole Saturday

“It’s been nice to be able to sit here watch football, have a drink, and then also see what’s going on in golf course,” said Malouf, a 2011 Auburn graduate.

Rick Guy/Special to the Clarion Ledger

Malouf was also at the Sanderson Farms Championship during Friday’s second round, and she thought there were more fans then than Saturday.

“I think (the Ole Miss game) definitely affected the number of guests here,” she said.

She also believed more fans would have showed up Saturday had they known they could sit in an area like Walker’s Cay.

For Ole Miss student Evan Abney, however, he was primarily locked in on the Sanderson Farms Championship. Wearing a navy blue Ole Miss polo, Abney said he began following golf more closely last year during the COVID-19 shutdown, which was also when he began playing golf himself. As a Mississippi native, this weekend was his first opportunity to tap into his newfound love of the sport and watch a PGA Tour event live.

“Obviously, if people can’t travel to Alabama or (Texas A&M), I feel like this is the best place to be outside of that, for sure,” Abney said.

Event coordinators like Jent tried keep attendance even on Saturday in the midst of SEC football, but sometimes it’s a tough task.

“We’re providing great hospitality. It’s just kind of growing organically,” Jent said. “There’s nothing that we really feel like we have to do this or do that. It’s just tweaking things and growing from there.”

Contact Rashad Milligan at 601-862-6198 or Jmilligan@gannett.com. Follow @RashadMilligan on Twitter.