By Claudia Loucks
Geneseo Current
Even though it has been a few weeks since the John Deere Classic Golf Tournament, memories of the tournament are still fresh in the mind of Kippy Breeden, who has been a volunteer with the tournament since 1987.
Breeden became involved with the tournament when a friend, Cris Nelson, was chairman of the transportation committee for the tournament, and was in need of volunteers to drive the PGA pros and their families for what was then the Hardees’s Classic and was held at Oakwood Country Club in Coal Valley.
“She said it would be a lot of fun and that’s how it all started for me,” Breeden added.
She has always been part of the transportation committee for the tournament, became co-chair in 1995, and was appointed to head chair of the transportation committee in 1999, the same year the tournament was renamed to the John Deere Classic.
“I have seven co-chairs that help organize 113 volunteers, she said.
Breeden reminisced about the early years of her volunteering and said, “In the beginning the transportation committee was located in the pool house at Oakwood. They then got us construction trailers and different committees were assigned to them. We would pick up anywhere from 30 to 50 courtesy cards from different Chevy dealers in the Quad Cities. Those were used cars and the vehicles had many miles on them, they even had the crank roll-up windows. We would pick up the vans from Orby’s. We would park the vehicles under the big Oak trees at Oakwood Country Club, and one year we had a terrible storm and it blew all the acorns of the trees and every car ended up with damage, that looked like damage from hail. That was an expensive insurance claim.”
Fast forward to current day tournament and Breeden said, “Now we pick up 189 cars from Smart Lexus in Davenport for the pros and our volunteers use them for shuttles, and we get 20 vans from Enterprise to be used as evacuation vehicles on the course and 11 display cars for advertisement for Lexus.”
Breeden also explained the requirements of becoming a volunteer and said the training involves reviewing the protocol to be used when driving the pros, their families, the media and caddies…”There are topics about the position that cannot be discussed for safety concerns for the golf pros and their families. We have procedures for drivers taking turns and running errands for the tournament. Most of the training is done the first day of a volunteer’s work schedule and then the routes are distributed for driving media and caddy shuttles. We also go over what hotels and private housing the pros are using for accommodations.”
Volunteer training begins the Thursday prior to the tournament and the volunteers work until the Tuesday after the tournament….”We run three shifts at the course, starting at 5 a.m. and continuing until 10 p.m.,” she explained. “We have two shifts at the airport that start at 6 a.m. and run until the last flight arrives at night.”
“The volunteers do a variety of errands from taking a person from the medical trailer to their car, to picking up items for the John Deere Classic to driving a pro from Moline to Chicago O’Hare Airport to catch a flight to the next tournament and everything in-between.” she added.
And it isn’t just the 13 to 14 days of preparation before, during and after the tournament, Breeden said she and her volunteers do a lot of preparing throughout the year…”and there is a lot of hard done by the volunteers during the tournament.”
“We are responsible for millions of dollars by keeping track of where and who has the cars,” she said. “One time a pro took the car he was using to O’Hare and left it unlocked in the short-term parking lot with the keys under the floor mat and never let us know what he had done. It took us 24 hours to track him down and find out what he had done with the car when it was not returned to us at the course.”
In spite of the problems that may arise, Breeden said, “I really love doing this job because of the friendships I have made over the years with the volunteers, the golf pros and their families, and seeing amazing golf and the number of charities this event helps. It really is very rewarding. I work very long hours every day, but I can’t imagine missing out on the fun!”
When she isn’t working and when the weather is nice enough, Breeden can be found playing golf herself, and she shared that her Dad started her golfing when she was a teenager.
Kippy Breeden with Jordan Spieth at the John Deere Classic. Photo Submitted