Chattahoochee Golf Course director Rodger Hogan says this week’s tournament will be the biggest thing his course has ever seen.

A collection of 168 professionals from all over the globe will descend on the city-owned course this week for the four-day Georgia Sports Orthopedic Specialists Classic, which begins Thursday.

The event at Chattahoochee is one of 18 stops this season for the Hooters professional golf tour.

“If it goes over well, we hope to make it an annual event,” Hogan said.

This isn’t the first time that Hall County has played host to a Hooters Tour event: Royal Lakes Golf and Country Club, in Flowery Branch, was the destination for stops on the tour in 2005, 2006 and 2009, when Hogan was that course’s director of golf.

Hogan says the draw for a Hooters Tour — the third largest professional tour — tournament is simple; fans get a chance to see the potential stars of the sport while still playing on the junior circuit.

John Daly, Lee Janzen, Tom Lehman, Jim Furyk, Chad Campbell, Zach Johnson, Ben Curtis and Vaughn Taylor, are just some of the players that passed through the ranks of the Hooters Tour before becoming some of the bigger names in golf.

Naturally, fans will want to come out and get a taste of the younger crop of talent that is on the rise. From his past experience, Hogan expects anywhere from 300-500 people to come and watch from the gallery, which is free of charge.

“People could be coming out to see a PGA champion or Masters champion five years from now,” Hogan said. “It’s happened a lot with players on the Hooters Tour.”

Despite its lower professional standing, the Hooters Tour still pays out big money. A total purse of $200,000 is on the table with the winner taking home a check for $30,000.

Signing a title sponsor, Georgia Sports Orthopedic Specialists, was the biggest hurdle in bringing the event to Gainesville, which was secured less than two weeks after being approached by the Hooters Tour to play host to the event last summer. The last step was to appear before the city council last October, where the event was met with approval.

“We were involved last year with the event (at Royal Lakes) and were happy to sign our name to it,” said Dr. Brad Noon, the President of Georgia Sports Orthopedic Specialists. “We’re really looking forward to it.”

For such a grand-scale event, Hogan had to enlist a group of about 40 local volunteers to help serve as starters, scoreboard attendants, tent workers, and to help disseminate tee gifts.

The course is responsible for food and beverage for players, caddies and accommodating players’ spouses.

“This is truly a total community effort,” Hogan said.

The Hooters Tour sends a staff of six employees to dictate holes and pin placement.

For its part, Chattahoochee is trying to ensure challenging conditions for the players by cutting the greens close to equalize the scoring. No other changes were made cosmetically to the course for this event.

“We want to make the greens a little more challenging to fit the pros level of play,” Chattahoochee’s Superintendant Sheldon Foote said. “Everything else is truly status quo.”

“The greens right now are as fast as I’ve ever seen them at Chattahoochee,” said Josh Bunch, who is from Gainesville, and will be part of the Georgia Sports Orthopedic Specialists Classic field.

Financially, Chattahoochee doesn’t anticipate making a great deal of money by playing host to a stop on the Hooters Tour, and that’s alright with Hogan.

Hogan says that his goal is to simply “break even” on the cost of the tournament.

“The carrot is the course name recognition with hosting the event,” Hogan said. “We’ll transmit the scores out to all the golf publications and people will see the name of the course right there — that’s big.”

In addition, a Pro-Am and Junior Clinic are going to accompany the tournament. For Wednesday’s Pro-Am, sponsored by the Chattahoochee Country Club, there are still spots available for four teams.

On Saturday, there will be a Junior Clinic will a handful of Hooters Tour professionals on hand starting at 3 p.m.

Charity money raised from next weekend’s event will benefit the Northeast Georgia Medical Center.

Golfing begins with a qualifying round Monday. Golfers have Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday morning to practice and get acclimated to the course.

“We had such a phenomenal response from the golfers last year,” Noon said. “They seem to have a great attitude for it.”