Pro golfers find comforts of home in NWA

ROGERS -- Every year members of the Pinnacle Country Club area open their homes up to players competing in the LGPA tournament, which sometimes leads to unexpected relationships that last a lifetime.

Professional golfer Danielle Kang first stayed with the Akers family in 2012 during her first year in the tournament. LeAnn Akers now looks forward to another week with the woman who has become another daughter to her.

"She came to us as a rookie and quickly took up a place in our hearts. She's my second daughter now," Akers said.

The Walmart NW Arkansas Championship, which begins Monday is in its 12th year at the country club, and as the tournament continues, more and more players are choosing to stay with host families instead of living in a hotel for a week, event organizers said.

"It all started with just a few hosts back in 2007 and just increased in popularity from there," said John Post, senior event coordinator for Octagon, a sports and entertainment content marketing firm that helps organize the tournament.

While the Rogers championship is not the only LPGA event in which players stay with local families, it is one of the most popular, said Claire Heffley, Octagon marketing and communications trainee.

So many players stay with families because of how welcoming the Pinnacle community is, Post said.

"These host homes are not just a place for these players to sleep, it's a chance for them to build these really great relationships," Post said. "These people do so much more than the minimum. They take care of the players and treat them like their own. It really makes the players choose this over a hotel."

Out of the 144 players at this year's tournament, 88 will stay with families living in and around the country club, Post said.

It is not unusual for players to stay with the same family every year, and Akers and her family are no exception.

In order for a family to house a player for the first time, they need to contact Post. Some returning players directly contact their host family from the previous year, which Post said "makes it easier on everybody involved."

On the players' end, Octagon officials send out information regarding housing in April, Post said.

"Then from there they can just contact us or email us, and request to have a host," Post said. "We have a database basically of all the families that have hosted in the past or people that have expressed interest in hosting ... . And from there we'll just coordinate it.

The impact the tournament has on the Rogers community outweighs any losses in tax revenue from the players staying with families, said J.R. Shaw, Visit Rogers executive director.

"The visibility for Rogers that the event brings to the region is undeniable," Shaw said. "And honestly if you look at it from a numbers standpoint, the players are only a small part of the people who come to Rogers for this. So we are not losing anything."

Shaw said he thinks that having the opportunity for residents to house players makes people around the world see how great a community Rogers is.

This tournament helps attract others to the region, Shaw said.

"People from around the world are coming to the Northwest Arkansas Championship and create a buzz about what we do," Shaw said. "And because of that, people are more and more interested in having their events here in this region."

Akers said she and her husband, Brent, decided to house a player because their daughter, Natalie, loved to golf.

"Natalie was 13 and we thought this would be a great exposure for her," Akers said. "I got a phone call from a friend that was in charge of services and she said, 'We have a rookie and we just need housing really bad this year,' and all I could think was that she could really be a good person to inspire Natalie."

When they met Kang, they knew she would become something special to their family, Akers said.

Anyone who hosts a player during the tournament is in for a wonderful experience and is "in for so much more than just giving someone a room," Akers said.

And the relationship between the Akers family and Kang does not end when the tournament ends.

"We've gone out to other places to see her play, like one time we traveled out to California to watch her and just it felt just like we were parents watching our child play," Akers said.

The family also was with Kang to help support her after her father died, Akers said

"We were worried that she wouldn't want to stay with us [during the tournament] because there was too many memories with him here in our house," Leanne said. "At first it was really bad when she came and she stayed in the hotel for one night, but came back because this was her Arkansas home."

Kang has also formed a close relationship with Natalie, who is now like a sister to her.

"The first year she was here, she just took Natalie everywhere with her," Akers said. "And it was really funny because sometimes times people thought Natalie was a player too. That was when Natalie was 13 and now she's 21. They have just been inseparable ever since."

Akers said she encourages all of her friends to host players because they could end up having as special of a relationship as her family has with Kang.

"We've watched her grow up and every year our relationship grows deeper and deeper," Akers said.

NW News on 06/18/2018