Annual Tourney Raises Money for Memorial Endowment

Local stick and disc golfers come together for a golf tournament at Montecito Country Club Thursday, Oct. 15, benefitting a scholarship at Westmont. The first annual William Wiersma Golf and Disc Tournament raised more than $10,000 last year for the William Wiersma Memorial Scholarship Endowment at Westmont. Golfers will tee off at 1 p.m., following a light lunch at noon. Hors d’ oeuvres will be served at 6 p.m., while awards and prizes are handed out. Greens fees are $150, $115 for recent college graduates (’05-’09) and $75 for current students. To register, please visit www.willstourney.com.

Wiersma graduated from Westmont in 2006 after spending his senior year studying at Oxford University. He was killed in a car accident in October 2006 while returning from an Ultimate Frisbee tournament in Phoenix. The following year, the Wiersmas established the scholarship to honor the principles of collaboration for which Will stood.

Will’s parents, Tom and Laura, who live in Grand Rapids, Mich., and his sister Natalie, a graduate student at the University of Michigan, say they are grateful the Montecito Country Club has embraced the unique approach of having both disc and stick golfers on one course.

“Traditional golf and disc golf don’t appear to have a lot in common and the two aren’t usually played at the same time on the same course,” Tom Wiersma says. “Will was a gifted athlete and a serious teammate, and it’s safe to say that he preferred playing Ultimate Frisbee over just about any other sport. Golf outings are a conventional way to raise money. Bringing this unconventional version of fundraising to a conventional venue like Montecito Country Club seems like a near perfect marriage of innovation and collaboration.”

The theme of Will’s Tourney is “Don’t just innovate. Collaborate!” “William tried new things, risked new approaches to old problems and engaged old and new friends in a collaborative way,” Laura says. “Collaboration is a learned skill and when it’s done well individual ideas are preserved, combined and transformed into the most effective actions, decisions and results.” She says a collaborative spirit emerged as a growing focus and skill in William’s life while he attended Westmont and Oxford.

There were more than 50 golfers last year, representing a mix of stick and disc golfers of varying skill levels. “Some people carried a bag of clubs and a bag of discs on their cart,” Tom says. “The field included a fun mix of Will’s Ultimate Frisbee friends from Santa Barbara as well as Westmont students, alumni, staff and others in the Westmont community.”