Many of the state’s premier golfers are ready to descend upon Aberdeen this week.

The South Dakota Golf Association Men’s and Women’s Match Play Tournaments will take place at Moccasin Creek Country Club. The men’s tourney starts on Thursday while the women begin on Friday. The tournaments conclude on Sunday afternoon.

The fields will feature a who’s who of top golfers. The women’s division has seven players who have won high school state championships.

“You’ve got some really good players. It always is one of our majors,” said Dean Zahn of Aberdeen, SDGA Director of Competitions. “It always does attract some really good players. It’s a big event to win it.”

Men have to pre-qualify to play in the tournament while the women do not. There will be 64 men and up to 32 women competing in the event.

“We have exempt players that get in,” Zahn said, “so they get an automatic exemption based on their past play.”

There have already been eight men’s qualifying tournaments with one last chance qualifier set up for Wednesday at Lee Park Golf Course.

“We’ve got about 25 guys for five spots,” Zahn said.

Match play format is much different than stroke play. The fields will keep getting paired down until just two golfers remain in both the men’s and women’s championship on Sunday afternoon.

“In match play, it’s you against another guy. You don’t have to worry about any other players on the golf course, so you can make a big number and you only lose one hole, and then you get to go to the next hole,” Zahn said. “Anything can happen in match play. Anybody can beat anybody at any time. You just get a little hot or something like that. It’s quite different than stroke play.”

Past state high school champions in the women’s division include Allison Meyerink of Mitchell, Olivia Braun of Aberdeen, Jacey Pugh of Miller, Brynn Roehrich of Watertown (Clark-Willow Lake), Katie Betsworth of Dakota Dunes (Dakota Valley), and Kaitlyn Strain and Rylan Horning, both of Rapid City (St. Thomas More).

“You get a lot of young guys and gals that play in this event, because it’s definitely for the better players,” Zahn said.

There is a chance for potential rain on Thursday. Zahn said play will continue unless it is lightning.

“It’s always great if it rains, but doesn’t lightning. We can probably use that, but nobody is the wicked witch, so nobody is going to melt out there as long as we don’t have lightning,” Zahn said. “Although the chances of having rain without lightning on a hot summer day is pretty slim.”

Zahn said officials will work to keep the tourney on schedule.

“We just do the best we can trying to get the matches in,” Zahn said, “and if it has to go overtime, it goes overtime.”

There will be full days of golf throughout the tournament with the last tee times the first two days scheduled for as late as 3 or 3:30 in the afternoon.

“It’s a very busy schedule,” Zahn said.

The Match Play tourney marks the first of two big weekends of golf in the Hub City. Lee Park will host the SDGA Women’s Amateur, Senior and Masters tourney on Aug. 8-9.

“It’s great for Aberdeen golf. Moccasin Creek has always been able to get championships. That’s never really been an issue,” Zahn said.

The SDGA has four regions where its tries to host tourneys.

“The Northeast obviously is little bit harder, probably the least amount of golf courses they can play on that are championship caliber golf courses. … When I came on board, I told our executive director, I said listen, Lee Park has come a long ways. It can host some of our championships again,” Zahn said.

Zahn noted that because of the length of the course, Lee Park wouldn’t be able to host some events, but it certainly works for others. He said it will mark the first time in more than a decade that the course will host an SDGA event and he is hoping for more in the future.

“This is great that we’re bringing Lee Park back kind of into the rotation,” Zahn said, “because there really isn’t a lot of 18-hole courses that we can use in the Northeast.”