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This coming Saturday, September the 13th, is the last day to sign up for the 17th annual BCC Golf Invitational, hosted by the San Francisco Basque Cultural Center. The tournament will take place on the 27th at the Poplar Creek Golf Course in San Mateo. Alain Camou, main organizer of the event, told Euskalkultura.com that they expect “between 30 and 40 participants, similar to previous years.

San Francisco, USA.  The cost to participate in the tournament is $125 per golfer and it includes green fees, cart rental, raffle prizes, favors, and a dinner at the Basque Cultural Center. That is where the organizers will give away $300 in prizes: $100 for the lowest score, $50 for the longest drive, $50 for the most accurate stroke, and $100 for a golfer chosen at random by a computer program created to match the marks of the best and least skilled participants. 

“A friend of mine programmed it to encourage people that might not be that good. That way, not just the best ones will get a prize,” explained Camou. The prizes will most probably be Gift Certificates to be used at businesses related to either golf or the Basque Center, although they might also be in cash, as the organizers haven’t decided that yet.

The tournament will kick off at 10:00 am and is expected to end at 3:00 p.m. “It usually takes around five hours,” in the words of Camou. So far, there are a dozen participants registered but he is expecting between thirty and forty. “It is an open tournament, anybody can participate; you don’t have to be a member of the Center.”

As Camou pointed out, he would like to organize a fundraiser along with the tournament, something he’s done “six or seven times” already. But he could not do it this year “because it is too much work for one person to be in charge of both things."

In previous editions, the BCC Golf Invitational has raised money for theAmerican Liver Foundation, the South San Francisco Boys and Girls Club, and the Multiple Sclerosis Association of America, to name a few.