North Forsyth and Forsyth Central got together for a friendly rivalry match at Hampton Golf Village Wednesday, but it felt like more of a warm-up for the upcoming county championship, to hear the coaches talk.

Wednesday’s results favored Central’s girls and North’s boys, but there was clearly some anticipation of next week’s tournament, which will feature boys and girls teams from all four local high schools, competing on the same course for the first time.

“It was an idea Sid [Bramblett] and I started talking about last year,” North boys coach Nathan Turner said, referring to his counterpart at Central.

“We played last year out there [at Hawks Ridge], we played a match against each other, and when we we got done that day, Sid said something like, “We need to do this again,” and the idea came out from our conversation to have a county championship.

“We know Hall County’s been doing it for years. ... Gwinnett has the Gwinnett Open ... We’ve all grown and our golf programs [in Forsyth] have gotten better, and it was to get all the schools on the course together in one day and have a fun day, and have a true county championship for the first time ever.”

Turner says that the county’s golf programs are on the rise at all levels, and that local teams thrive on playing each other. North and Central have a long-standing friendly rivalry, he said, while West Forsyth has improved in its short golf history and South Forsyth has set the standard for local play and established themselves as the program everyone wants to beat, at least on the boys' side.

One tricky aspect of organizing high school golf events can be finding course managers who are willing to work with the schools, Turner said.

“The first thing that golf coaches have to learn is you’re at the mercy of the golf course and we’re very fortunate in Forsyth County to have golf courses that let us come out and play, and we’re blessed by that,” Turner said.

The tournament, which will be held Thursday at Hawks Ridge Golf Club in Ball Ground, is set to begin at 4:30 p.m. It will be played entirely on par-3 holes, which Bramblett thinks will be beneficial to his players.

“[There’ll be] a lot less pressure that day than regular golfing, and to me it’s the most important part of the game, because the short game is where you score. You lose most of your strokes on putting and the short game,” he said.

The winning school will receive a plaque, which will be passed around year-to-year in a manner that Turner compares to the British Open’s Claret Jug.

“This’ll be fun. Hawks Ridge is an unbelievable course. ... It’s going to be a fun day,” Turner said, noting that Tiger Woods and John Smoltz are among those who have played the course.

E-mail BJ Corbitt at bjcorbitt@forsythnews.com.