The Choo Choo Invitational golf tournament is more than sprouting.
It's growing full bloom.
The amateur event at Council Fire Golf Club is starting to attract more college-level players who are capable of participating in the U.S. Amateur.
It's not a Chattanooga District Golf Association tournament. The field goes beyond that. But it's not the Porter Cup or the Dogwood Invitational or the Western Invitational or one of many other historical amateur tournaments that draw the best golfers in the country.
At least not yet.
"We want our reputation to be known as a U.S. Amateur tune-up," said tournament chairman and Council Fire member Chris Schmidt. "We want to set the course up in a way that golfers are challenged from the tee, and if a fairway is missed, how do they make par?
"We want a champion who is smart enough to think his way around the course."
Matthew Mahle from Lexington, Ky., and the College of Charleston made his way around it last year in fewer strokes than anybody else. He won with a three-day total of 6-under 210 on the course that straddles the Tennessee-Georgia line.
"Right now, this is my favorite course," he said a year ago.
According to Schmidt, Mahle will return and defend his title this weekend.
"I think it's important to get the best field possible because our pride would be to see one of our guys who play here in the U.S. Am," Schmidt said. "To see one of our guys win the U.S. Am would be incredible."