Standing behind the volunteers check-in table near the Eagle Bend Golf Course clubhouse was Mary Kay Samp. No surprise there.

Samp, whose husband, Jerry, is one of the organizers of the inaugural Lawrence Futures Classic, was in charge of securing volunteers to work the three-day event.

“We can always use more,” Mrs. Samp said, “but for the first day for something that’s never been here before, it’s gone amazingly well.”

So, too, are things going amazingly well in Williamsburg, Va., where the Samp’s daughter, Kirsten, shot a 68 in the first-round of the LPGA Michelob Ultra Open on Thursday and was only one stroke off the pace. Friday’s round was rained out.

Could it be that Kirsten Samp’s first LPGA Tour victory will coincide with the weekend of the Lawrence Futures Classic? If so, it certainly would be a memorable coincidence for the Samps, because it was their daughter who piqued their interest in the Futures Tour in the first place.

Kirsten played on the Futures Tour for seven years before finally qualifying for the LPGA Tour for the first time last season.

How did Kirsten Samp survive for those seven long and lean years?

“She’s amazingly thrifty,” her mother said. “She traveled around in a van. In fact, she’s still doing it. Most everything she has is in that van.”

Kirsten Samp, now 31, played collegiately at Missouri University about the time the Samps moved from Columbia, Mo., to Lawrence where son Mike played golf for Lawrence High.

And where is Mike today? Probably at the volunteers tent. That’s where he was Friday.

“He flew in last night to surprise me for Mother’s Day,” Mary Kay Samp said.

And, of course, she put Mike to work, but not before he gave me a spiel about the golf club manufacturing company he works for in Chandler, Ariz.

“There’s no putter on the market like ours,” Mike told me. “It’s different because the majority of the weight is on top of the blade.”

The company, if you’re interested, is called Aserta and, yes, he’s heard the one about the mattresses. Many times. “I usually tell them it’s Serta with an A in front of it,” he said, smiling.

Before I left the volunteers tent, I learned that more than 100 of the meet’s participants were staying in Lawrence homes. And I was informed that Bill and Janet Muggy established what may be an unbeatable record by housing seven of the competitors.

“That’s like having a hotel,” Mary Kay quipped.

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The Muggys own Jayhawk Book Store, and Mrs. Samp assured me the seven really were staying at the Muggys’ house and not on cots between the store’s shelves.

Jim and Karen Fender also made their home available. They’re housing two touring pros, including Lori Atsedes of Ithaca, N.Y., who was among the first-round leaders Friday after firing a 2-under-par 70.

Not a bad score with a last-minute, back-up caddy.

“She woke me up at 7 a.m. and said the guy who was going to be her caddy couldn’t be there, so she asked me to carry her bags,” Jim Fender told me.

What could he say? So Fender, who turned 52 last week, made his debut lugging a heavy golf bag around the course.

“At the 15th hole, I’m thinking, ‘Three more holes. I think I can make it,'” he said with a grin. “I’m just glad she plays so fast. She never takes a practice swing. It’s unbelievable how fast she plays.”

It’s almost as unbelievable how fast you’ll arrive at the course if you park in the temporary lot on the grass next to the Clinton Dam outlet. A van picked me up soon after I parked and whisked me the quarter-mile or so to the entrance.

Don’t try to park in the lot adjacent to the course. It’s reserved for the players and Futures Tour officials. Also, if you’re going, plan to sit on the grandstand near the 18th hole. While you’re waiting for golfers to appear on the green, take a few minutes to watch the red-tailed hawks soaring above the trees.

I saw so many hawks circling I wondered why they didn’t dub the city’s municipal course Red-Tailed Hawk Bend when it opened in 1998.

Oh, and see if you can spot the bobcat. Several volunteers reported seeing the wild animal — it was NOT a mountain lion — sprinting across a fairway and into a wooded area.

“Are you sure it wasn’t a Kansas State Wildcat?” one wag asked.

“It better not have been,” another replied.

Come on out and watch the Lawrence Futures Classic. You’ll see red-tailed hawks, maybe a bobcat and plenty of birdies.