Women maintain active roles both on and off golf courses

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By David Heitz | Friday, July 11, 2008 |

Stacy Vasil, left, of San Diego, Calif., and Amy Wilson of Chicago, Ill., are married to pro golfers and travel to each golf tournament with them through the year. (Andrew Link/QUAD-CITY TIMES) Buy this Photo

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No woman has to be a “golf widow.”

Take it from Amy Wilson, wife of PGA player Mark Wilson, and Stacy Vasil, soon to be married to Charley Hoffman, also a professional golfer. Both women are in town this week for the John Deere Classic, offering moral support to their partners, who teed off Thursday.

The term “golf widow” refers to women who are left behind while their husbands work the links. But for the wives of professional players, being left out of the game is not an option.

“I’ve never played golf,” said Vasil of San Diego. “Grandpa used to watch it on TV, and he’d start to fall asleep, and he wouldn’t let us change the channel. I used to think golf was the worst thing ever.”

Now, however, she sees things differently.

“It’s Charley’s dream to play golf and to see Charley live that dream is so awesome,’’ she said.

Vasil and Amy Wilson belong to the PGA Tour Wives Association, which raises money for charities. Members of the wives group also volunteer as they crisscross the country on tour. Volunteer activities rotate among different venues, said Wilson, of Chicago, who is president of the group. No service work is planned in the Quad-Cities this year, but in the past, the United Way of the Quad-Cities has been the benefactor of the group’s efforts.

Wilson said she and her husband are not only partners in marriage, but partners on the course. Some wives even caddy for their husbands.

Although being married to a professional athlete may sound glamorous, it’s not always. For example, many wives run to the Laundromat or grocery store after watching their men play all day, sometimes in blistering heat. There’s nobody taking care of things for them, although the tour does provide day care for players with children.

For the Wilsons, baby made three this year. Their 10-month-old boy, Lane, has been jetting all over the United States with them.

“It’s a whole new thing traveling with a child,” Amy Wilson said, estimating the tot has flown on at least 20 airplane rides.

Being a tour wife isn’t for those who like to stick to a schedule. The itinerary always is up in the air depending on how well their husband is playing. They also have to spend time with their mate after a bad day on the course.

“Mark’s usually pretty good,” Amy Wilson said. Added Vasil: “You kind of know when to give him a little space.”

For the record, Mark Wilson and Charley Hoffman each shot even-par scores of 71 Thursday.

Unlike Wilson and Vasil, whose other halves bring home the bacon while putting around the course as professional players, some men melt away the money with their expensive pastime. With that in mind, Jill Baenziger of Genoa, Ill., didn’t care too much when her husband, Jim, ended up getting a job as a ranger at Oak Club of Genoa golf course.

“I got a chance to play free golf, and I took it,” Jim Baenziger said. “It did bother her a little bit at first. She reminded me that there were things around the house that needed to be done, too.”

Jill Baenziger, who reluctantly went to the Classic on Thursday with her husband as spectators, said she initially became irked when he took up golf because he never was around. “But I got used to it. Now, in the winter, he’s around all the time, and it drives me crazy.”

Vasil said women who feel “widowed” by their amateur golfing husbands should “take the sport up and play it with them. But don’t have your husband teach you. Go to a professional.”

The Baenzigers do plan to play together in an upcoming tournament for couples.

“I’ll do it for him,” Jill Baenziger said.

Dave Heitz can be contacted at (563) 383-2202 or dheitz@qctimes.com.