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History
of SEDGA
The Dixie
Deaf Golfers Association was organized on September 15, 1968. The occasion took place after the 4th
Annual South Carolina Deaf Golf Tournament which was held at the Shoresbrook Golf Course in Spartanburg,
South Carolina.
A meeting was
held at the home of Tom Ligon with the expressed
aim of promoting deaf golf tournament within the borders of the Dixie States
for Virginia, North Carolina
and South Carolina deaf golfers
to play golf together under one banner annually. They have had been playing
together in tournaments in those three states. The other objectives
of the organization was to upgrade the deaf golfers’ vocation and to
promote its members to full membership in the Deaf Golfers Association of the
Dixie States so that they may be fully qualified as members of this
organization.
Heyward Thompson was elected President; Olin Creasy, C.R.
Parish, and Carlisle Saunders were elected as Vice Presidents of Virginia, South
Carolina and North Carolina
respectively. Albert Gibson of South Carolina
was selected as Secretary-Treasurer.
A brief history of the Dixie Deaf Golfers Association
in the South was rewritten in this issue after some advertisements about the
Virginia Deaf Golf Tournaments and Ralph Crutchfield’s recordings of the
North Carolina Golfers Association of the Deaf were founded. Since
before1962, several well-known deaf golfers in Virginia
were Olin Creasy, Glover Wright, Carlton Lewellyn, Odie Nunn, Melvin Crew, Jr. Joe Smith, Fred Yates and
Charles Alexander (some, who should have been named above, may have been
missed). They formed deaf golf tournaments and these tournaments attracted North
Carolina and South Carolina
deaf golfers for several years. This had a great influence on some deaf
golfers in North Carolina that
encouraged them to establish their own organization.
At the
beginning of 1964, Ralph Crutchfield and his golf buddies, who lived around Winston-Salem
and Greensboro, N.C.,
founded N.C.G.A.D. and wrote the first by-laws of N.C.G.A.D. The First Annual
North Carolina Deaf Golf Tournament was held at Deep River Golf Course near Greensboro,
N.C. on September 12, 1966. There were numerous deaf golf
tournaments and social events in Burlington,
Lenoir, Morganton, Black Mountain,
High Point, and other cities in
N.C. Twenty five members including some deaf golfers from Virginia
were recorded in 1966.
The Dixie
Deaf Golfers Association was organized in 1968. During the early spring of
1969, Charles Crowe and Robert Watson came to the N.C.G.A.D. meeting in Winston-Salem,
N.C. They gave an excellent pep talk to a
group of members about forming an Eastern Deaf Golfers Association in Wilson,
N.C.
The following
year, 1969, the first official deaf golf tournament was held in Morganton,
N.C. In June 1970, the name of E.D.G.A.
was changed to the Southeastern Deaf Golf Association (SEDGA) by vote of the members.
Jack Whisenant of Thomasville,
N.C. captured the First Annual SEDGA Championship with a score of
169 in two rounds. Sixteen deaf golfers were present and one deaf golfer from
California, Truitt Sanders, had
come out to play with this group.
Since this
small beginning, SEDGA has
grown steadily each year. Today, we have a strong organization with
outstanding leadership in which SEDGA
covers 10 states with 7 affiliated organizations under the SEDGA Banner.
Let’s
keep the SEDGA’s
Flame burning brightly for many more years to come.
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