ROGERS — About the only thing volunteers at the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship have in common is a love of golf.
Otherwise, the people come in all shapes, sizes and age groups, pay as much as $45 to volunteer and, this year, got a complementary suntan in the 100-degree heat.
Robert Babcock of Bentonville is a chairman overseeing 18 volunteers for the supply and distribution of ice and drinks.
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“We’ve got people ranging from their 20s to their 70s,” Babcock said. “They’re not afraid of hard work or to crack a smile and have a good time. The LPGA asked for volunteers and then volunteers to be chairman. It’s something I really wanted to do — we all enjoy helping give the community a good name.”
A full-blown volunteer pays a $45 fee and is assigned various tasks during the tournament. About 700 people — many are volunteers — work behind the scenes and helped the tournament have a pay-out purse of $2 million, with $300,000 to the winner.
Volunteers also receive two Callaway golf shirts and caps with the tournament logos, a badge for access and parking along with guest passes, meals and a volunteer party — for those who survived the heat.
Mary Ann Lovekamp of Carthage, Mo., guarding one of the greens to keep stray golf carts quiet while players were putting, said this is her third year as a volunteer.
“Well, there isn’t any crowd control because there isn’t any crowd and what there is all seem to be under control,” Lovekamp said Friday afternoon after the gallery following former Razorback Stacy Lewis had moved on. “I really enjoy seeing these kids play. When you’re 70 years old, you can call anyone a kid. We’ve got some here in their 80s and their 90s volunteering.”
Jessie Gartner of Joplin, Mo., who was helping Lovekamp shoo away errant carts, said this is her first year volunteering at the tournament.
“It’s neat, being a golfer, watching these young girls that can really play,” Gartner said.
Pat Meier of Bella Vista was tending the nylon rope “gate” at the par 5 No. 2 hole Friday.
One side of the concrete cart path winds across the fairway and Meier’s job was to keep spectators from crossing the fairway portion of the path until the players were gone.
“I had a lot of friends that volunteered and I thought this is something that I’d like to try,” Meier said. “I should be old enough to know better, but here I am.”
Meier said she was on the same hole Wednesday for the pro-am tournament — which required more activity on her part.
“There were shots Wednesday in the trees, in the houses — I had trouble staying out of the way,” Meier said. “Not today, though. The women don’t miss many fairways and when they do, it’s not by very much.”
Ernest Campbell of Shirley, near Fairfield Bay, is in his first year as a volunteer and guarded the other end of the rope on No. 2.
He said he attended as a spectator last year, visited with a marshal about volunteering this year and received an email. His wife was a marshal at the No. 2 green.
“We’ll be here all day, every day,” Campbell said. “We didn’t read the fine print. We thought we were listing times we were available, not volunteering for double shifts every day.” Campbell also witnessed the carnage of a pro-am tournament, this one on Thursday. What impressed him most, he said, was the play of the pros, not the amateurs.
“Oh man, can they play,” Campbell said Friday. “On Thursday, during the pro-am, they were taking risks and going for the green on the par 5 in two. Now that they’re playing for money, they taking the safe shots from the fairway.”