Bobby Emmons (Photo courtesy of Rick Schmitz)
Bobby Emmons brought his youthful “fire at will” game with him to the Desert Classic Tour’s only visit to Tucson this year on June 23rd - 24th, and proved once again to the fans in Phoenix that he is always a danger to snap off any Arizona event that he enters.
The drive to Tucson has been known to dissuade some players from participating in the annual event at Pockets, but that was not the case this year as a field of 45 players were in attendance. The field drew the usual assortment of top talent from Phoenix, the best players in Tucson, and a couple of the fiercest female competitors in the state.
As is always the case with such a tough field, there were a couple surprising early eliminations as Tucson’s Don Westbrooks, George Teyechea and Susan Williams all fell victim to the “two and out” jinx at this one. Brett Huth also ended his string of top finishes as he ended up out of the money this time.
Although Susan Williams was eliminated early, Sara Miller, Susan Wilbur and Tracie Hamman carried the torch for the female players at the event with Sara pulling off a very nice upset win over Tucson’s Rudy Alameda.
As the field thinned on Saturday, it was pretty apparent that Emmons was going to be the player to beat in this one. “It was typical Bobby. He might miss a couple balls here and there, but that didn’t phase him. He was definitely the best player in the room all weekend” said tour director Dennis Orender.
Emmons really put his foot down in the tournament after his Saturday win over Mitch Ellerman. “Neither of us brought our games to that match, and I knew I couldn’t win the tournament playing like that” said Emmons. After the loss to Emmons, Ellerman would be eliminated by Chris Paradowski on Sunday.
Emmons went on to remain undefeated on Saturday and found himself competing for the hot-seat on Sunday against tour points leader Chuck Evans. That match would be a close one, but Emmons would win it 7-5.
On the one loss side, Evans found Tres Kane waiting. Kane has lost a match on Saturday to Arizona’s newest 9 rated player, Jerry Stuckart, on Saturday but was on a six match winning streak to get to the match against Emmons. That would be where Kane’s winning streak would end, as Evans beat him 7-4 to earn another shot at Emmons in the finals.
The first set of the finals would be a carbon copy of the first match between these two players, as Evans tried his best to slow down Emmons’ rapid fire ball making, but in the end it was another 7-5 win for Emmons and an undefeated run through the field. “I was just trying to keep my mind clear and play with no pressure” said Emmons. “Chuck played a great tournament” Emmons added.
Orender expressed his thanks to Lenny and his staff for another great event. Orender also wanted to thank Alf Taylor for sitting in with George Teyechea to commentate the finals on the live stream.
The Desert Classic Tour’s next event will be a B/C Only event at Bullshooters on July 28th and 29th.
