Five golfers from Central Oregon will test their collective golf strength this week at the Buick Scramble National Championships – and, if they win, will have the opportunity to meet Tiger Woods.

The team, made up of PGA pro Bob Garza and amateurs Brett Morelock, Scott Morelock, Buddy Peterman and Rick Gehrke, all of Bend, tees off in Orlando, Fla., on Thursday for the first of three days of tournament scramble play. If they are one of the low 24 teams in each division (net and gross), the team will move on to a championship round Sunday.

The 72-hole tournament, that includes a field of 212 teams representing 43 U.S. states and Canada, will be played on six Orlando-area golf courses, and the winners will be presented a trophy by Woods.

The Central Oregon team qualified for the national championship scramble event after winning a qualifying tournament held at Lost Tracks Golf Club in Bend this last summer. The team went on to compete at a Pacific Northwest sectional qualifying tournament at Quail Valley Golf Club in Banks, where they routed the rest of the field (with three eagles among them), winning by five strokes in the gross division.

A team from Washington also qualified for the national tournament in the Pacific Northwest division by securing the low net score at the sectional.

To be eligible to compete in the scramble, the minimum handicap total among the four amateur players must be at least 36, while only one player may have an handicap index under 8.

Gehrke, who plays out of Redmond’s Juniper Golf Club, is the only member of the team to have previously competed at the national championship scramble.

”In the tournament, it’s extremely competitive,” said Gehrke last week. ”You know you have to birdie just about every hole just to be in it. It’s pretty nerve-racking.”

In a scramble-format tournament each member of the team hits a tee shot on every hole. According to Buick Scramble rules, the team then selects one of the tee shots from which to play and all members of the team then hit from that position. This procedure is repeated until the ball is holed. Each team member’s tee shot must be used at least twice during an 18-hole round.

The Bend team agreed last week that a finely-tuned short game – chipping and putting – will be the key to qualifying for Sunday’s championship round.

At the sectional tournament in August, the team played with Garza for the first time (the local qualifying tournament was for amateurs only).

”Early in the round, you know, you got the roll going,” said Brett Morelock. ”We just had the momentum. You had to laugh at some of the putts we made.”

One of the team’s three eagles at the sectional tournament was an 80-yard chip-in by Garza using a sand wedge on a Par 5.

Garza said the team has the potential to be very competitive at this week’s tournament, and noted that the five-man crew has a good mix of strengths.

”I’m not nervous because I think we have a good team,” the Lost Tracks golf pro added.

More information about the national championship tournament is available online at www.buickscramble.com.