By STEVE WILLIAMS

Mark down the first majors on the Keller Williams and Harris Teeter amateur golf tours to be major success.

Dubbed “The Masters” by tour director Bruce Hallenbeck, the events at Anderson Creek just outside of Sanford drew large crowds.

This is the first year Hallenbeck has designated four events on each tour as majors. Double points are awarded and flight winners receive automatic exemptions to the season-ending tour championships.

The Keller Williams event at Anderson Creek March 29 drew 116 players while the Harris Teeter senior event at the same course March 27 had a record field of 105.

Rainy conditions greeted the Keller Williams field and sent the scores soaring.

"These guys are normally going to shoot about three or four strokes better than they did today, but they all understand that it's the same for everyone,” Hallenbeck said of the conditions that got better as the day progressed.

Jeff Crowe of Fayetteville, who had earlier won at the Legacy, took honors in the championship flight, firing a 77 at the 7,180-yard layout designed by the Davis Love group. He won by three shots.

Other flight winners were Mike Meadows of Jamestown, firing a 77 to win the A flight; Chris Ransom of Raleigh, also notching a 77 to take the B flight; and James Williams of Sanford, posting a “career round” 87 to win the C flight.

Ranson may have seen the last of his B flight days as he earned a battlefield promotion to the A division.

"Chris has improved so much since he started with us three years ago that we've decided it's time for him to make the jump to the A Flight,” Hallenbeck said.

Ransom noted, "I've got some friends playing "A," and they've been getting on me to play up there with them, so now I've got that opportunity.”

All four flight winners received special trophies acknowledging their efforts, as well as an automatic qualification to the season-ending Tour Championship event, held at Wild Wing Plantation in Myrtle Beach in late October. That event takes the top 10 points leaders in each flight, from each of the 20 different Keller Williams Tours along the East Coast to play in a two-day, 400-plus man event.

In the Harris Teeter event two days earlier at Anderson Creek, Raleigh's Mike Wilson shot a 78 and emerged victorious in the championship flight in a three-way tiebreaker. Pinehurst's Chuck Wunsch and Greensboro’s Gil Happel also posted 78s but fell victim to the scorecard playoff.

There was also logjam atop the leaderboard in the A flight. First-year member Don Douglass of Jamestown took the tiebreaker over Germanton’s Frank Goolsby, Raleigh's Frank Boone and Greensboro's Charlie Wilson. All four shot 81s.

Tour veteran David Cross of Elizabethtown took the B Flight with an 82 and Jay Dixon of Winston-Salem continued his outstanding play in the C Flight, winning with an 89.

Bristol Martin of South Boston, VA, playing out of the C flight, had the "tough-luck" story of the day. His eagle-3 on the 493-yard, par-5 No. 10 hole was "capped" by the A Flight's Van Kelly, a Triad Tour member.

"There would have been a few bucks in it for Bristol if Van hadn't topped him," stated Hallenbeck, referring to the friendly "Skins Game" both men had entered. "This is gonna happen two to three times a season but it's still a shock every time.”

The next majors on the tours are set for The Challenge in Graham. The seniors play May 1 and the regulars May 3.

Dodging rainstorms has been a familiar site for golf tournaments all around the state this spring and the Keller Williams Tour and Harris Teeter Tour are no exception. Some events have already been made up, but there is one more make-up date on the schedule. The Keller Williams event, set for Bermuda Run April 12, has been rescheduled for May 24.

Both tours will welcome new members throughout the summer.