Local golf notebook: New organization helps get girls in game
4/30/2001One of the area's newest golf organizations, the Maumee Valley LPGA Girls Golf Club, is a developmental junior program for girls ages 7-17.
The program is run in participation with the LPGA, the United States Golf Association and the Girl Scouts. Members must be registered girl scouts.
The local club, one of 80 in the country, has about 75 members who take part in clinics, skills challenges, tournament competition, miniature golf, night golf and off-course events. Members also have an opportunity to work as volunteers on the driving range during the Jamie Farr Kroger Classic, an LPGA event.
The tourney schedule includes a mother-daughter event, a father-daughter scramble and several stroke-play tournaments at Bedford Hills Golf Club. Players with a higher skill level will get the chance to play in an 18-hole invitational tournament at Stone Ridge Golf Club in Bowling Green.
For information, contact site director Dan Lancaster (843-4737) or Angela Tennaro at the Maumee Valley Girl Scout Council (243-8216).
EVANS SCHOLARS: Six caddies from Toledo-area country clubs have received full tuition and housing scholarships from the Evans Scholars Foundation, administered by the Western Golf Association. The scholarships are based on four criteria - caddie record, academic record, financial need and character.
Three of the recipients will attend Ohio State University. They are Rachel M. Doran (Central Catholic High School) of Sylvania CC, Kevin M. Trimmer (Central Catholic) of Sylvania CC, and Adam T. Wehrmeister (Bowsher) of Toledo CC. Planning to attend Miami University are Tricia A. Katz (Springfield) of Stone Oak CC and Christopher D. Tracey (St. John's Jesuit) of Stone Oak CC. Olivia M. Ott, who attends Blissfield (Mich.) High School and caddies at Sylvania CC, will attend Michigan State.
This year's recipients bring the total to 256 caddies from Toledo clubs who have earned full scholarships through the Evans Scholars program, most being Ohio residents who attended either Ohio State or Miami.
FINALLY: When Mike McCullough, a charter inductee into the Toledo Golf Hall of Fame in 1999, won the Mexico Senior Classic earlier this year, it marked his first Senior PGA Tour victory in 177 tries. It came in his 151st consecutive tour event, easily making McCullough the Senior Tour's iron man.
SPRING FEVER: The Ohio State Park Resorts are offering a “Swing Fever'' golf package through May 24 at Maumee Bay and five other state parks. The package includes two nights of lodging, two breakfasts and two dinners per person, plus greens fees and cart rental for 36 holes. Rates range from $220 to $260 per person, based on double occupancy. For information, call 800-282-7275.
FUN FORMAT: The American Heart Association will host a Night Golf Benefit on Friday, June 22 at Bedford Hills. It's a six-hole, five-player scramble with a shotgun start at 9:30 p.m., using night-glow golf balls. There will also be putting and chipping contests. For information, call 841-7006.
THREE-DOT DATA: The pro shop at Inverness Club was the only Ohio venue listed by Golf World Business magazine on its annual list of America's 100 best golf shops. Inverness has been honored seven times in the 16-year history of the ratings. ... The Wolf Pack, a group of golfers at Heather Downs Country Club who donate all winnings from friendly on-course wagering to charity, scored a record $7,045 in donations to 12 different charities last year. ... The recently released Golf Instruction Manual by Steve Newell, the instruction editor for a European golf magazine, is well illustrated and among the best of its kind. (DK Publishing, $24.95 hardcover). ... Members of the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America were asked what kind of wildlife causes the most destruction on their golf courses and the answer should come as no surprise to golfers from NW Ohio or SE Michigan. Forty-one per cent of the superintendents listed geese and other ground-feeding birds as public enemy No. 1. Moles, deer/elk, gophers, skunks and armadillos rounded out the survey.