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The next year, she won five tournaments and finished second four times. She also earned her second major championship title at the 1987 Mazda LPGA Championship.
Always a determined and gritty player, Geddes was a spunky selection for the 1996 U. S. Solheim Cup team. In her two decades on the LPGA Tour, she amassed 52 top-10 finishes, including 14 in major championships. She also finished among the LPGA’ s top-20 season money winners nine times.
THE OTHER SIDE But when Geddes retired from the LPGA in 2003, it wasn’ t to go home and bask in the success of her professional career. Instead, she returned to college to complete some unfinished business.
“ I loved it when I played, but I always knew I wanted to do something that would challenge me after I left the tour,” said Geddes, 57, who currently lives and works out of her home office in Stamford, Conn.
Geddes earned an undergraduate degree in criminology from the University of South Florida and went on to earn her law degree at Stetson University.
She returned to the LPGA in 2007 as an executive and became the tour’ s senior vice president of tournament operations and player services.
Now, it was Geddes’ turn to listen to the self-assured young pros lobbying for what they wanted against the backdrop of rules and tour regulations. She was also learning how sponsorship dollars and cooperative efforts of many entities made tournament competition possible.
“ I knew the golf part, but in my role at the tour, I learned so much about the business perspective,” said Geddes.
BRAVE NEW WORLD Never one to take the easy route, Geddes took a giant leap of faith in 2011, when she left golf and the LPGA and accepted a new role with World Wrestling Entertainment( WWE). The WWE saw value in how Geddes had worked with the LPGA’ s players and brought her in to work with its athletes.
“ Golf gave me everything I have, but I went to the WWE because I wanted to be challenged,” she said.“ It was so different than the LPGA and it was a giant public company with 800 employees. Working there gave me some new tools.”
At the WWE, it was Geddes’ job to offer professional development for the wrestlers. She also helped add an anti-doping program, linked the PR / marketing program of the athletes with the company’ s more expansive PR / marketing initiatives, added a small travel benefits program, and worked with the athletes’ medical benefit plans. She even helped them enroll in language-learning programs to gain skills in different languages for use in the international markets that WWE hoped to attract.
During her three years at WWE, Geddes also helped launch WWE’ s television network, which dramatically raised the organization’ s visibility.
“ I had the chance to build a team based on a lot of what I had done at the LPGA,” she said.
BACK TO THE TRACK But as stimulated as Geddes was by the new and very different world of professional wrestling where she worked— and
one with unlimited resources— she found herself missing the game she loved and knew the best.
“ I didn’ t know what the IAGA did when I first heard about the job, but I really, really wanted to get back into golf,” said Geddes.“ The executive director role offered that opportunity.”
As it turned out, IAGA saw a parallel with what Geddes had been doing in her previous administrative roles and the current needs of the organization. And as a lifelong self-starter, Geddes appeared to be a good fit as the individual who could come into the new role and manage the course that IAGA will ultimately take.
“ We have the power of all of these golf associations, so what can we do with that?” asked Geddes.“ How can we market that? How can we make ourselves better?
“ And how can we provide services and benefits to members in the form of professional development, leadership development and consolidated purchasing or travel benefits?” she added.“ IAGA represents almost all the golfers in the United States and Canada with registered handicaps, and that’ s a lot of golfers.”
In addition, Trammell noted that there is no current program in the golf industry that prepares individuals to lead golf associations. The IAGA and Geddes plan to develop programs to identify, train and retain talent on the state and regional levels.
And for existing IAGA members, the buying power of such a large organization could prove beneficial for equipment purchases, such as tournament staff radios.
“ The leader of this organization can help us look for and negotiate benefits to our membership,” said Trammell.“ There’ s a great opportunity for us to partner with organizations or with vendors and companies that can provide services and products that we all use.”
“ It’ s like playing a round of golf... Every now and then, you hit it off line, take a chance or make a long putt, but you play every hole and hope to play the best that you can.”
PROVEN WINNER, READY TO LEAD Geddes is excited about the chance to be creative in the IAGA’ s new executive director role and to help link the many state and regional golf associations under the same umbrella.
“ It’ s like playing a round of golf,” she said.“ Every now and then, you hit it off line, take a chance or make a long putt, but you play every hole and hope to play the best that you can.”
Much has happened since Geddes and Trammell first met three decades ago under the California palm tree. Each has taken her own circuitous route to leadership positions in the game.
But while Trammell got the final word on the ruling that day so long ago, Geddes went on to win the tournament. It was a memorable moment that stuck in Trammell’ s mind while she led the search for the IAGA’ s first full-time executive director.
And when Geddes stood among the top potential candidates to lead IAGA, Trammell’ s choice was easy. A proven winner got the nod.
vsga. org M ARCH / A PRIL 2017 | V IRGINIA G OLFER 27