If he didn't feel a sense of urgency a few months ago about winning his first Roanoke Valley major, golfer Cam Young should these days.
Hey, who knows how many more chances the ex-Virginia Tech quarterback is going to get?

Thanks to a new job that will soon force him to move to the Richmond area, Young will have plenty of incentive to finally get it done in this weekend's 32nd Roanoke Valley Golf Hall of Fame men's championship that starts today at Hanging Rock.

"Certainly, I would love to win a major before I leave town," said Young, who finished second in both of the valley's majors - the HOF and Roanoke Valley Match Play - last summer.

"I've had chances. In last year's Hall of Fame, I thought I was making a run with nine holes to go, but I couldn't get a putt to fall on the back side. And in the Match Play last year, either one of us [Young and winner Chris Clemens] could have won that thing. This is probably going to be my swan song in this thing, so I'm going to give it everything I've got."

Young, 38, won't have to worry about Matt Mankin this year. Mankin, whom Young called "the best player in town, without question," turned professional two months ago and is ineligible to compete.|

The absence of Mankin hardly leaves Young's path clear. The 140-player field includes former HOF champions Scott Wise, Jack Allara, Jake Allison, Bobby Penn and Rodney Naff, plus former Match Play winners Miller Baber, Tim Chocklett, Gary Leroux and Clemens.

Then there are the two young bucks whom Young rates as the players to beat in the 54-hole event - long-hitting teenagers Aaron Eckstein, 16, and Fielding Brewbaker, 18.

"I play with those two kids a lot at Hidden Valley, and they've got game," Young said. "I didn't know if the kids were ready to play with the older guys just from the mental standpoint, but in our club championship this year the good doctor Allara had them by three shots and it didn't faze either one of them. They proved to me then that they are ready to contend in anything they play in."

In the 36-hole women's championship that begins Saturday at Waterfront, Meredith Swanson, who at 13 last year became the event's youngest champion ever, heads a field that includes former winners Dot Bolling, Marilyn Bussey, Valeta Pittman, Ann Kite, Sara Cole and perennial contender Meg Davies.

"I think my chances are as good as anyone's," said Swanson, who beat five-time champion Bolling in a three-hole playoff last year. "I still think about last year all the time, about how that 20-foot putt rolled in [on the second playoff hole], how unlikely it was, and everyone all cheering.

"It was just a dream week. The best part was waking up the next morning and seeing myself on the front page of the sports section of the newspaper."

The men's field heads to Ole Monterey for Saturday's second round before concluding play Sunday at Blue Hills. The women will finish up Sunday at Ole Monterey.

Reprinted with permission from The Roanoke Times.