Preserving Golf's History for Future Generations
JEAN ST. CHARLES TO BE INDUCTED INTO
THE TENNESSEE GOLF HALL OF FAME AS ITS 50TH MEMBER
Tennessee Golf Foundation (TGF) Chairman Jim Seabury announced November 27 that the Tennessee Golf Hall of Fame 50th member will be Tennessee’s first lady of the Rules of Golf –Mrs. Jean St. Charles of Signal Mountain, Tennessee
Jean St. Charles and her husband, Pat (deceased), raised five children on Signal Mountain where Jean and all of her children still reside along with many grandchildren
Before she fell in love with golf, Jean was an accomplished Badminton player. She began her many years of involvement in golf in 1958 when she and Pat joined Signal Mountain Golf and Club. She actively started playing in 1960, became a very good player and started on her journey toward mentoring, administration, and expert rules knowledge.
Jean is a former president of the WTGA (1987-89) which under her watch progressed to become a more structured organization in which women could test their skills competing in championships which were administered by knowledgeable rules officials, many of whom Jean personally mentored.
Jean is a member of a select group of officials who have scored a perfect score on the USGA/PGA Rules of Golf test. She has been honored by the USGA for volunteering across the country for twenty-five years. She has been a director of the Tennessee Golf Association since its merger with the WTGA in 2000 bringing her years of service to Tennessee golf to more than fifty years.
Jean's connections to other outstanding women in golf in the Southeast helped to found SWATCA (Southeastern Women's Amateur Team Championship Association) to promote competitive golf among women in Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Tennessee, and to foster communication and interaction among the women's state golf associations of these states. While states withdrew and were added over time, Jean continued to make sure that Tennessee was represented.
Jean also helped establish the Tennessee Women's Open which has shown Tennessee to be a leader in opening frontiers for both professional and amateur women golfers across the nation. She has served as the tournament director since the beginning of the championship.
Jean is currently an Emeritus Director with the Tennessee Golf Association and is still active on the Rules of Golf committee and continues to referee and to urge all golfers to become knowledgeable of the rules.
The induction ceremony for Jean St. Charles will be held on Saturday, June 23rd at Chattanooga Golf & Country Club. If you would like more information or an invitation please email Cpearce@tngolf.org.
2017 Tennessee Golf Hall of Fame Induction Class Announced
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Connie Pearce (615) 465-6330 or cpearce@tngolf.org
September 12, 2016
THREE NAMED TO TENNESSEE GOLF HALL OF FAME
Mike Kaplan, Joe Kennedy & Toby Wilt Make Up Class of 2017
(Franklin, Tennessee) Tennessee Golf Foundation (TGF) Chairman Jim Seabury announced on August 26 that the Tennessee Golf Hall of Fame will induct three new members into its Class of 2017. Joining the Hall of Fame’s 46 current members will be Tennessee golf legal counsel and past TGA President Michel (Mike) Kaplan, Vanderbilt Legends Club of Tennessee superintendent Joe Kennedy and longtime TGF independent director and The Masters starter Toby Wilt. Induction ceremonies are to be announced in early 2017.
Joe Kennedy, Franklin
Joe has been a turf grass leader in Tennessee and on a national stage. He has been the head superintendent at the Vanderbilt Legends Club since it opened in 1991. He is a past officer of the Tennessee Turfgrass Association and has been at the forefront of turf research at The Little Course, growing 56 varieties of Bermuda, zoysia, fescue and bent grass since 1995. It is the only golf course with active, turf research on its entire property with golfers playing over 16,000 rounds annually. “Joe and fellow Hall of Famer David Stone (the Honors Course) set the standard for golf turf in the southeast transition zone. Keeping golf turf year-round with temperature ranges from -10 degrees to 105F is next to impossible and nobody in America does it better than Joe Kennedy,” noted TGF President Dick Horton.
Toby Wilt, Nashville
Toby was the Independent Director of the Tennessee Golf Foundation for its first 19 years. He and the late Bronson Ingram were principal founders of The Golf Club of Tennessee and facility that has hosted TGF’s primary fundraiser, Vince Gill’s “The Vinny” since 1993. Toby has international acclaim and is seen by millions each April as the Starter on the first tee at The Masters at Augusta National. Wilt has teamed with PGA Ryder Cup member Brandt Snedeker to win the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am and his endowed TSW scholarship at Vanderbilt has been given to such notables as Snedeker, the PGA TOUR’s Luke List and current NCAA All-American Matthias Schwab. Presently, Mr. Wilt is chair of the TGF President’s Advisory Committee. His other sporting love is football and has seen him chair the Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl.
Mike Kaplan, Nashville
Mike is a nationally prominent tax attorney with Sherrard & Roe in Nashville and has served as legal counsel the TGF, Tennessee Golf Association and Tennessee Section PGA for the past 26 years. He is past President of the TGA and is an accomplished expert in the USGA Rules of Golf. Michel orchestrated the historic merger in 2000 of the Women’s Tennessee Golf Association and the Tennessee Golf Association. “Today our state is looked upon by others as having set the standard bringing men’s and women’s gold administration under one roof. What Mike did was brilliant and golf leaders from around the country marvel at how two established organizations came together to make the game better,” noted fellow Hall of Fame member Lew Conner of Nashville.
Wilt & Brandt Snedeker win the 2013 Pebble Beach Pro-Am
Kaplan honored as the 2007 Society Person of the Year by Dick Horton
Kenndy with Dick Horton at Vanderbilt Legends Club
2016 Tennessee Golf Hall of Fame Induction Class Honored
September 8, 2016 the Tennessee Golf Foundation honored four elected members of its 2016 class of the Tennessee Golf Hall of Fame. The reception was held at Golf House Tennessee with family members representing the late E.E."Bubber" Johnson and Mack P. Brothers, Jr.
Mack Brothers, Jr. (1911-1984)
Brothers won the 1944 State Amateur, two State Senior Amateur titles and the 1969 Southern Senior Amateur championship. He was also once ranked by Golf Digest in the top five US Senior amateur players. He won the Belle Meade club championship ten times. Off the course he was known as the father of the Tennessee State Open Championship. For twenty years, beginning in the 1950s, Brothers was the most influential golfer in Tennessee. He was president of the Tennessee Golf Association in 1955, 1965, and 1975. No TGA director gave of his time and financial resources more than Brothers.
E.E. "Bubber" Johnson (1919-1996)
Eldridge E. "Bubber" Johnson built a number of Middle Tennessee’s golf courses and was inspiration to many young players - amateur and professional. Johnson served as a national vice president of the Professional Golfers' Association of America (PGA) and was president of the Southeastern Section of the PGA in 1961-62. Johnson and others were instrumental in Tennessee securing their own section. He was involved in design and/or construction of courses and additions at Stones River, Bluegrass, Hillwood, Hillcrest, Lakewood, Swan Lake, Graymere and Temple Hills. He was the first golf director at Disney World Resort. Over the years, Johnson had a tremendous personal impact on the growth of the game in Nashville and Middle Tennessee.
Roy D. Moore (1902-1983)
Roy Moore was secretary of the Tennessee Golf Association for many years and president in 1951. During his tenure as a director he was responsible for the TGA starting a scholarship program. He was an accomplished player; however he is best known for promoting the game. For many years he was the unpaid golf coach and recruiter for Memphis State (now University of Memphis). He was the driving force behind the Colonial Amateur Invitational, one of the nation’s biggest amateur tournaments that was played for 16 years, and later a founding father of the Memphis Open, now the FedEx St. Jude Classic.
Marguerite Solomon (1895-1986)
From 1929 to 1941 there were only eight Tennessee State Women’s Amateur tournaments played. During this period, Margueriete Lowenstein Solomon won the TGA Women’s State Amateur four times and was runner-up twice, Marguerite Gaut won three times and Margaret Gunther won once. Mrs. Solomon’s two seconds were to Gaut and Gunther. Mrs. Solomon is one of seven women who have won the State Amateur four times or more. She also won the Memphis City Amateur five times (1931, 1939, 1940, 1943, 1944) and the trophy is named in honor of her.
2015 Tennessee Golf Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony & Dinner
On June 23, 2015 at the 14th Tennessee Golf Hall of Fame dinner at the Chattanooga Golf and Country Club, Maggie Scott and Gene Pearce were treated to a few special moments as their sons – Neil Scott and Ray Pearce – talked about their respective parent. They were inducted along with Edyth Duffield and Horace F. Smith, posthumously. Maggie Scott – 10-time TGA senior women’s Player of the Year … 9-time state senior women’s amateur champion … 1994 state amateur champion … Cleveland Country Club champion (33 times) … Cleveland city champion (30 times). Gene Pearce – author of The History of Tennessee Golf, 1894-2001 … he also produces a yearly Tennessee Golf Almanac which documents the year in golf and the history of many tournaments across the state. Edyth Duffield – first organized a statewide women’s amateur golf tournament in 1916 … which later led to the formal organization of the Women’s Tennessee Golf Association … served as president of the Women’s Southern Golf Association, 1918-19 … won the Women’s Southern Amateur (1917) and the Women’s TGA State Amateur (1920). Horace F. Smith – spearheaded the organization of the Tennessee Golf Association during play of the 1914 Southern Amateur in Memphis … president of the Southern Golf Assoc., 1904 until his death in 1930.
Ray Pearce on His Dad
“My dad has never disappointed me in any way and was always there on the sidelines cheering me on in any sport I played growing up.”
How appropriate that Gene Pearce, a history major at David Lipscomb Univ. (Nashville) would be the one to write his first book The History of Tennessee Golf published (1894-2001).
“Dad spent 15 months researching the history of our sport and he accomplished the near impossible fete of finding every Tennessee Golf Association from 1914 to the 1940s when some said all that information couldn’t be found. Without my dad, much of the history of Tennessee golf would be lost.”
Gene Pearce Comments
“I’m so emotional that when I hear the playing of “My Old Kentucky Home” I tear up and I am not even from Kentucky,” he said which gained laughter from those in attendance Tuesday night.
“I never expected pats on the back (for his aforementioned book) … all wanted to do was write a book on the history of golf and received great support from the TGA. Dick Horton (president of the Tennessee Golf Foundation) encouraged me the entire time I was working on the book.”
Neil Scott on His Mother
“Tonight is one of the great highlights for me to introduce a woman who has touched my life and so many others … my mom.”
“Mom – I am so proud of what you have accomplished on and off the golf course. You are the true definition of greatness.”
Maggie Scott Comments
This is a special week for Maggie Scott in several ways … Sunday she celebrated both her birthday (66th) and her wedding anniversary to husband, Jim … she is also playing the state amateur at the CGCC this week and was inducted into the TGA HOF Tuesday.
“Being inducted into the TGA Hall of Fame here at the Chattanooga Golf and Country Club is special, since I played in my first state amateur here and qualified for my first USGA senior amateur here.”
“I want to thank all the TGA volunteers because without their work we would not be what we are today as an organization.”
“I also want to thank my dad who gave me so much confidence to play this game and for the late Connie Day (TGA Hall of Fame, 2007) who convinced me I could play with anyone in the state.”
Best Story of the Night
“I was playing Betty Probasco in match play in Jackson several years ago and we were preparing to putt on the 16th green when Betty’s caddie came over and told us that Betty had actually won the match on the 14th hole,” said Scott with a laugh. “We were enjoying the round so much, neither of us knew that match was over two holes prior.”
~B.B. Branton, TheChattanoogan.com