The men’s member-guest has been one of the highlight tournaments for Tellico Village golf for years. After last Tuesday, the ladies have a member-guest to brag about as well.
“We didn’t have one last year, and I think the year before it was a combined effort with Tennessee National,” Ladies Golf Association 18-hole treasurer and tournament participant Rosemary Overton said. “We had some kind of two-day tournament — one day at Tellico Village and one day at Tennessee National. I did not get to play in that one. I was looking forward to getting to invite my guest to play at our course because she invites me to play at hers.”
Not wanting to put an event together that was a clone of the men’s tournament, Geri Denney set out to create an experience unique to the women who golf in the Village. The tournament had a theme and a dress code, which was black for Monday’s putting contest and pre-tournament party, and white for Tuesday’s 18-hole round and award ceremony.
“I think one of the things that made it very successful is that this was an event that was a party with a lot of golf things to do thrown in,” Denney said. “It wasn’t just your basic burgers and brats type of thing. It was something ladies were a little more appreciative of. All of the color coordination, the tee prizes with the matching prize bags that went into it and the matching napkins and the matching table cloths. Everything that women appreciate was there, and the prizes were designed with ladies in mind, with lady golfers in mine certainly, but with ladies in mind. So, everything this tournament projected was to appeal to women and women golfers. Guys would not really appreciate or even notice some of the things we did, but all of the women made comments about how everything coordinated, how the theme of the tournament carried all the way through.”
Denney was given a lot of credit by both Overton and Hilde Stein for how well operations went over the two days of play.
“We started talking about it back in January,” Overton said. “Geri has run these types of tournaments before in her prior life before Tellico Village. It sounded like talking to her that she knows how to put one on and what kind of details to add to the table. It’s not just a matter of giving everybody a bottle of water and a tee time. She thought of everything.”
But Denney also made sure to point out that she couldn’t put it all together alone.
“Tom Lee and Judy Andrews did an absolutely remarkable job,” Denney said. “The Ladies 18-hole board of directors was absolutely supportive. Our pro shop, Adam Jacobs and Jim West, went above and beyond to support this and make this a successful event. It almost makes me want to cry it went so well.”
“She recruited the people she needed to pull it off and a lot of people gave their time,” Overton said. “Members of our league who were not able to play in the tournament still donated their time and efforts to make it a success.”
Participants had some questions about how successful the tournament would be, but reservations were put to rest even before tee off.
“There was certainly a lot of excitement and anticipation,” Overton said. “Would it be good? Would we be able to pull it off? You always worry about the weather and things like that. But the slots filled up quickly, and I think next year will even be better in the sense that now people know it will be a tournament people will want to be invited to.”
After Tuesday’s turnover, the response from golfers in Tellico Village and especially the guests, there is only room to grow from here. Denney said she has already had a lot of people asking about playing next year.
“I think we’re starting maybe a new chapter in this,” she said. “I think it’s going to be an ongoing event that’s going to be very successful, and I think we did what ladies are going to be looking for in a tournament. I think we’ve found a formula that really works.
“I like the size that we had this year because everybody was able to really mingle with other people and get to know other people. I think if we grow the event we might have a separate division possibly for the nine-hole ladies that have a difficult time or don’t choose to play 18 holes. That might be a possibility in the future. We’re probably going to have a meeting to debrief this sometimes next week and talk about future plans for the tournament.”
