Inside the Ropes

As you may know this is our 5th year sponsoring players on the LPGA and days like yesterday continue to remind us why have elevated our partnership with Tour Pros and the LPGA Tour each year.

Paige Mackenzie invited us to support her Charity Shootout and play in  the 2nd annual event held at The Meridian Country Club in Auburn, Washington. Sunday night the Kickoff party was held at the Muckleshoot Casino - Tournament Manager and possible next Jimmy Buffer hosted the eve amidst what was an oddly busy casino on a Sunday night.  One of our guys suggested that it was busier than a casino in Vegas on a Sunday but I digress…

Monday we tee’d it up at 8am in the shotgun tourney. We were paired up with Julieta Granada, long time friend and LPGA ADT Championship winner in 2006 ( nice first prize: $1 million…). Julieta is actually one of the first players I met on Tour, she was playing with Kim Saiki-Maloney ( our first LPGA Pro sponsorship - we miss you Kim! ) at the old Takefuji Classic in Vegas.  Julieta was awesome to play with and took on a personal mission to work with one of our guests on his game during the round. We were blown away by the transformation of his game through the day and I think he has a new teacher/guru - great work Julieta! Now it’s time to fix my game…

Paige invited 11 of her fellow Pros to play in the event and the other 18 4somes played with Club Pros from around the NW.  It never ceases to amaze me how gracious the LPGA players are, and by the end of the day new friendships were made, good times were had and we all left looking forward to see them all and Team VTech next week here in Portland for the Safeway Classic at Pumpkin Ridge.

From Singapore to Mexico and back, the VTech Team is back on U.S. soil and getting ready for some action!  This week the whole team gears up to compete at the J Golf Phoenix LGPA International at the historic  Papago Golf Course, designed by well known and esteemed golf course architect William Francis (Billy) Bell, the same architect of Torrey Pines in San Diego.

Since the Papago Golf Course just celebrated their Grand Reopening last month-  recently closed for 8 months for a course overhaul, we’ll be keeping an eye on what happens to our girls this week on this new course. With Amy Hung, Alena Sharp (Sharpy), Becky Morgan (Shorty), Diana D’Alessio (Sweet D) and Karen Stupples (Stups) in the final field, they’ll definitely be giving defending champion Lorena Ochoa, a run for her money. And with $1.5 million in purse money up for grabs, we’ll definitely be keeping our fingers crossed!