Chicken George

I have never attended anything like it. Not even close. People literally came from all across the country to play in it. It was THE happening in Reynolds Georgia every summer for more than a decade.

The Chicken George Invitational Golf Tournament was founded, directed and produced by none other than my brother, Chicken George himself.

George was born on April 12, 1952 at Sams-Whatley Hospital in Reynolds, the day after and in the same place of one of his grade school classmates, Gary Parks. He always wondered if Mama brought the wrong baby home from the hospital.

The Chicken George tournament began small as a gathering of Lambda Chi fraternity brothers from the University of Georgia. But it grew into much more.

As many as 150 golfers, and I use the term “golfers” loosely, played in a two day, 36 hole tournament on the 9 hole golf course in Reynolds, Georgia. Counting the golfers and their families, Reynolds would easily increase its population by 50% during that weekend.

Most of the out of town golfers and their families stayed with locals at their homes in Reynolds or Butler or somewhere in between. Most stayed at the same house year after year because they became friends with their hosts. It was a great deal. Nice accommodations, great breakfast in the mornings. At no cost to the consumer.

The weekend usually kicked off on Friday at noon when Chicken George would arrive in town and do the Kiwanis Club program. Many times he would bring his college buddy, Big Denny, with him and they would entertain the local Kiwanis crowd with a little guitar picking. They would sing such original songs as, Slow Drip Coffeemaker and Elsie Moo Love from their popular album, “Big Denny and Chicken George Live in Woodstock with Moo Love.” Some songs they would make up as they went along.

The golfers would start coming in on Friday afternoon and most would try to get in a practice round after the gnats starting calming down late in the day. You could feel the excitement building all over Reynolds. Business also picked up for the local merchants, especially at Johnny Crooks Gas Station. Johnny told me he sold more beer during the Chicken George weekend than he did all the other weekends in a year – added together.

Mama and Daddy’s house was always full of golfers and their families and most of the other golfers not staying there would stop by at some point during the weekend and Mama (Chicken Naia) would give them the plan of salvation.

So business picked up for Johnny Crook and Mama during the Chicken George weekend.

For many of the golfers the first time they played golf was at a Chicken George and for many others it would be the only time they played all year. But there were some very good golfers who played year after year. Many times there would be a playoff late on Sunday afternoon to determine the champions. There would be a huge gallery following the golfers in the playoff and all the gallery would be riding in gas golf carts.

During the playoffs, you could hear a pin drop when the golfers were addressing a ball or leaning over a putt. Then you would hear all the gas golf carts cranking up and heading to the next shot. It was a sight to behold.

The galleries at Augusta National had nothing on the galleries at the Chicken George.

A golf pro from St. Simons sent a letter to George one year and said he came back year after year because it was golf in its purest form.

Not sure about golf's purest form… but it sure was golf in its most fun form.

Some interesting things happened during the Chicken George. The president of the Women’s Missionary Society from the church almost fainted one Saturday afternoon when she was walking past the swimming pool. She was flashed by a golfer's girlfriend. A girl gone wild. Reynolds was not quite ready for that.

And Cooper, the manager of the golf club, got really upset when Will Crawley went out to the course in the middle of the night and sawed down a huge tree in front of Number 7 tee. His ball had hit that tree earlier that day and he didn’t want to have to deal with it on the Sunday round.

And when the rumors started flying that Larry Fuller and Bryant Wynn teed off number 8 naked as a couple of jaybirds, Chicken George decided he better start making some rules.

He ended up with two: 1) Please keep your clothes on at all times during play on the golf course and 2) No dancing on the golf course.

Chicken George finally got married and settled down. And the tournament got too big and people got too serious – so he finally ended it.

Crooks Service Station went out of business and Mama started a ministry to the old ladies in town. Everything worked out and life went on.

But Chicken George still wonders if he really belongs to Ted and Mattie Parks.