NATCHEZ — In the Miss-Lou Golf Invitational, strokes don’t necessarily matter

That was a good thing at the Beau Pré Golf Course Saturday afternoon.

In its fifth year since inception, the Miss-Lou Golf Invitational benefits what tournament organizer Josh Hargon called “the hackers.” Hargon said the tournament is designed so that no golfer can shoot better than an 80 on the first day and no matter how badly you shot, golfers would be no more than three strokes on the second day of the tournament, making life a little bit easier on the hackers.

Hargon’s uncle Jim Hargon explained a hacker is a golfer that shanks more shots than he’d like to admit.

“That’s one that plays army golf,” said Jim, swinging his arms from left to right, demonstrating golfers shanking the ball. “You know, left, right, left, right.”

The Miss-Lou Golf Invitational is a tournament that focuses more on the friendship bonds rather than the actual scores golfers earn on the golf course. So when Jim sank an Eagle on the first hole of the two-day tournament, his group shook their heads in disbelief. Walt Wilson was one of them.

“I was thinking, ‘Man, I should quit right now,’” Wilson said.

Jim’s day wouldn’t get any better than that.

“It went downhill from there, trust me,” Jim said.

Still, Jim finished with one of the better scores of the day with an 88. Josh jokingly blamed the weather for the poor scores.

“It was so hot when we started, and then we got rain afterwards,” Josh said. “Think how we played. Not very well.”

Serving as a nice change of pace from last weekend’s competitive city championship, Wilson enjoyed playing in a tournament that focused more on the fun instead of the scores.

“My showing in both tournaments wasn’t pretty,” Wilson said. “Last week, when I played in the city championship, everyone was uptight. In this one, everyone’s goofing off, so I could relax more.”

Charlie Hugg, who was one of the 40 golfers that participated, said there was a whole lot of weed whacking going on in his four-man group. Still, that didn’t stop him and his friends from ribbing one another.

“All day we’re texting people and seeing how they’re doing,” Hugg said. “We’re ragging all day. It’s really fun.”

Shanking and hacking aside, Josh said there’s not a much better way of ending the summer than reconnecting with old friends on the golf course.