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A perfect early autumn day in the northern-most parts of East Lansing, Michigan - sunny and warm, with blue sky and a slight breeze - the setting for the 15th Annual Rotary Foundation Charity Golf Outing held Monday, September 14th, 2015. The Outing’s host 18-hole course at Timber Ridge Golf Club lived up to its reputation and name – a tough course made so by lots of trees, rolling hills and narrow fairways. Our Club’s normal weekly meeting was supplanted by this fun and entertaining affair full of outdoor exercise, fresh air, concentration and laughter, with a short late afternoon meeting and hors d’oeuvres following in the Timber Ridge Clubhouse dining hall.
The day started early for many of our Rotary Club’s generous volunteers and Timber Ridge personnel as tables had to be set, golf carts lined up, diddy bags filled, teams organized and registered, and pins set and special prize holes targeted. Our Club Administrator, Cathy Andrews, as always was hard at work leading the way with the setup and organizing, assisted in large part by Erica Bills, Dan David and McKenna Long and others, not an exclusive list by any means. The amount of work that goes into this annual affair is mind-boggling once you attend the follow-up meeting or golf, or both. This is the first Lansing Rotary Golf Outing meeting that I’ve attended and I’ve yet to golf – next year I’m doing this event despite years of not having golfed at all (yes, a varsity golfer in high school in northern Wisconsin, thank you). I was truly inspired by the comradery and celebration at this event.
It was a shotgun start that began at 10:00 a.m. when the 54 golfers first hit the course, 12 teams of four golfers each and another two teams of three golfers each – men’s teams, women’s teams, and several mixed teams as well. Before the teams departed the Clubhouse, Debbie Mikula, Executive Director of the local Arts Council and spokesperson for the beneficiary of the event’s charitable proceeds, welcomed and thanked the Lansing Rotary Club, the golfers, and the 14 major and 18 tee sponsors. Timber Ridge’s Joey Stimac’s welcome to the golfers and summary of the course rules followed closely afterwards.
The finishing teams started showing up at the Clubhouse at around 2:45 p.m., with the last team in at about 3:30 p.m. Timber Ridge’s Nick, multi-talented as it were, doubled as the key Pro Shop staffer and later as busboy helping to clean-up after our end-of-day meeting, awards and feast. Nick was also busy, in part, answering my questions and creating a very clean team finish board which was ultimately placed on the wall at the front of dining hall to display the final results. As teams finished, Nick recorded the scores using, as he explained later, a very complex handicapping system.
After short announcements and presentations by Erica Bills - the Outing Event Chairperson, and Michelle Reynaert - Lansing Rotary Foundation President, event spokespersons Missy Lilje thanked all attending and participating before introducing Debbie Mikula – Arts Council Executive Director who, as noted above, also had the distinct honor of having opened this event mid-morning.
Debbie keynoted this portion of our event’s follow-up meeting by graciously thanking the Rotary Club of Lansing for its hard work and generous donation of the event proceeds to the Arts Council. As she explained, the Arts Council works with local schools and teachers to provide specialists in the classrooms in order to promote art and by focusing on its work with the neediest students through Resident Artists in the Classroom. Thanks to our Rotary Club’s efforts and the hard work of our Rotary Foundation and all those responsible for the hands-on planning and preparation of this event and leading up to and on the day of the Golf Outing, the Arts Council is now able to fund 12 one-week Residencies of this sort.
Those sponsoring this event were given a tremendous formal thanks and vote of appreciation by Missy, for without sponsors this key Rotary Club of Lansing charitable fund-raiser could not possibly happen.
And now, the winners…drum roll please. Garnering the top score for the Men was the foursome consisting of Michael Bernstein, John Catt, Scott Carney, and Craig Galecka – this talented Men’s Team also achieved the Lowest Overall Score. Besting the other Women golfers was the team of Jenn Dubey, Tobi Lyon Moore, Olivia Martin, and Stephanie Milo. And of the six (6) Mixed Teams, it was the team with golfers Brenda Geoghegan, Sue Hansen, Chris Holman, and Glenn Granger that topped them all. Each member of a winning team received a really beautiful artistically-designed 15th Annual Rotary Foundation Charity Golf Outing glass trophy honoring their win.
 The Men’s Longest Drive was struck by Jack Johnson off the tee on fairway #10. And for the Women, the Longest Drive came off the club wielded by Melissa Nay on fairway #6. Glenn Granger came closest to the pin for the Men on #11, while unfortunately there was no ‘closest to the pin’ winner on #11 for the Women. Generous gift cards were their reward.
Finally, Matthew Anderson plucked lucky Jeff Crippen’s ticket #567672 from the hat giving Jeff a handsome cash pot of winnings totaling $267.00 in the event close-out 50/50 Raffle affair.
And with that, this year’s Golf Outing came to an end. Our next meeting is Friday, September 25th, 2015 at Eagle Eye Golf Club for what many Lansing Rotarians consider a highlight of our Rotary year – as guests of the Downtown Coaches Club, with this year’s sit-down luncheon very likely to be extra special as MSU football is the talk of the nation with a national ranking rise to #2 in the polls and most recently #1 in the Power Rankings. See you there! Cathy will be updating us on the time of the meeting, but we know to expect a nice lunch and a big crowd…so best to arrive early, if possible, find a friend and sit and enjoy. Go Green, Go White!
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