LPGA star returns to home course to benefit Awareness Garden

Early in Donna Andrews’ high school athletic career at E.C. Glass, she was faced with a difficult choice. The Virginia High School League had moved tennis and golf into the same spring season, meaning that Andrews could no longer compete in both.

“We really weren’t sure which way she was going to go with that,” recalled her mother, Helen Andrews. “We just kept our fingers crossed.”

In the end, as her parents had hoped, Donna chose golf. It was her feet, rather than her heart, that tipped the balance.

“I knew I wasn’t quite fast enough to really make it in tennis,” said Andrews, who went on to star on the LPGA tour and will be back in Lynchburg Oct. 3 and 4 for a golf tournament at Boonsboro Country Club to benefit the Awareness Garden. “Kirsten Caister beat me all the time.”

And if she wasn’t even the best player on her high school tennis team, Andrews reasoned, Wimbledon was probably out of the question.

So she picked golf, and never looked back. Golf got her a scholarship to the University of North Carolina and a spot on the pro tour, where she won more than $3 million and six tournaments (including a major, the Nabisco Dinah Shore, in 1994). By the time a recurring shoulder injury forced her into retirement, Andrews was ready to cash in her chips and fulfill her dream of buying a horse farm near Pinehurst, N.C.

Now, she and husband, James Tepatti, have two kids and a farm and dabble in real estate. Donna is a teaching pro and runs her own golf school. The one thing she doesn’t have time for, ironically, is actually playing 18 holes of golf.

“Hardly ever,” she said earlier this week.

She’ll be at Boonsboro (her home course as a young player) on the Monday of the tournament, however, hitting shots with every foursome that comes along. She’ll also put on a clinic that day for the morning groups, and attend a Sunday night pre-tournament party.

Besides the chance to come home, Andrews also has a personal family reason for helping with the event — her mother, who was diagnosed with cancer almost a decade ago and beat it.

“We’ve got a brick in the Awareness Garden,” Helen Andrews said. “It’s a wonderful thing. Donna grew up with several of the founders.”

She also grew up with golf clubs in her hands, competing first with her two brothers and then with her teammates on the Glass boys’ team.

“There was a lot of rivalry there,” Helen Andrews said. “It made her tough. And she had to hit from the men’s tees.”

Donna was also flown to amateur tournaments all over the country (thanks, in large part, to the extensive network of contacts of local golf supporter Joan Glass), staying with strange families.

“Back then, things were different,” Helen Andrews said. “We didn’t worry about her as much as we would have now.”

Otherwise, the Andrews family all played together. Barclay (Donna’s father and her earliest teacher) and Helen were accomplished golfers as were their sons. And now, Donna’s 4-year-old son Conor shows every indication of moving into the pipeline.

“He can really smack the ball,” Helen Andrews said.

Deadline for tournament signup is Sept. 27. The phone number of the Awareness Garden Foundation is 384-6740.