Warden wrestling holding annual charity golf tournament

WARDEN — On Saturday, the Cougars wrestling program will hold its fourth annual charity golf tournament at Sage Hills Golf Course in Warden. According to assistant wrestling coach Alan Martinez, all proceeds from the event will go to the wrestling program at Warden High School.

“It’s been really successful the last three years, and it’s gotten bigger every year, and now it’s turned into one of the biggest tournaments that I know of in the area,” said Martinez, “It’s all for a good cause, and one of the lines that we hammered to everybody is, ‘Every cent, every dollar, goes straight to the kids.’”

Martinez said that money raised from this event has helped enable the program to buy new wrestling mats, singlets for wrestlers, camps for the youth to attend and clinicians to come to the school.

According to Martinez, these funds allow kids who face financial hardship to be able to participate in team events and be more involved in the sport. As the sport becomes more competitive, he said, it’s important for the wrestlers to attend camps and invest in better equipment.

“We all wrestled here, and we all grew up here, and the four or five coaches that we have here helping, and none of us were able to go to a camp, none of us got that experience,” he said.

Martinez said the event has grown each year, and heading into this weekend’s event, they are already at full capacity. About 29 teams are expected to play Saturday, he said.

However, anyone not able to participate can still donate that day via check, cash or electronic payment if they would like to support the Cougars wrestling program. Patrons may also mail checks made out to Warden Wrestling Booster (Paws) to P.O. Box 2283, Warden, WA 98857.

Popularity for the tournament has grown so much that Martinez said they are borrowing golf carts from other courses or businesses in the area, including personal carts. They had people on waiting lists to join the tournament, and the event sees a lot of alumni return to raise money for the program they used to wrestle for, according to Martinez.

“We’re trying to make it as big as possible. But it’s a really good tournament,” Martinez said, “I think last year you’d see a couple of wrestling matches happen in the middle of the grass and stuff, and it’s just old buddies reliving the glory days and raising money for the young kids.”