The 21st Annual Golf Tournament hit a 10-year high in sponsorship revenue as well as golfer registration numbers and revenue. With the“Battle of Bands,” 144 golfers rocked the course.

This year I was lucky enough to be invited to WTIA’s 21st annual golf tournament and the experience has been unforgettable. The event was at capacity with 144 players and 22 different sponsors with the presenting sponsor being HomeStreet Bank. This year’s theme was “Battle of the Bands”. Each of the 18 holes had different music genres representing that decade’s style of music. In addition, there were special games presented at each hole for the players to participate in as they played through.

The most memorable hole for me was definitely hole 14, where hole sponsors Base2 greeted their guests with 20 seconds of Spice Girls as they arrived. Also at the hole was the very special Anne Bly, who looked gorgeous in her stylish Britain-inspired dress and hair. The groove was right, and they dressed to impress!

With all the partying and fun, WTIA also included two food trucks and a Mexican buffet for their hungry golfers to make sure everyone was happy and full. The food trucks, scattered around the golf course, presented delicious gourmet hot dogs and pizza to the hungry guests and became a very popular destination during the event.

Breaking tradition, this year, the golf tournament implemented an app for guests to use to register their scores and give real-time scoring during the tournament. The mobile app was created by Eventslite and had features such as real-time scoring, a map, teams, and even information on the sponsors of each hole! One of the guests, Dan Zimmerman, quoted, “The scoring thing was the best feature of the app” and hopes next year that WTIA will continue to provide it again.

Ultimately, the event was a great success, and the excitement of the day lasted all night.

The winner of the first prize was team 14A with Ian Ritchie, Brian Crum, Graham Thompson, and Jeff Pattison scoring an amazing 53 points throughout the day.

I interviewed David Lee from Peterson Sullivan, a long-time participant of WTIA’s annual golf tournament and he said that the tournament could only be described with three words, “Another Smashing Event.”

All of this would not be possible without our sponsors. Aside from our presenting sponsor, HomeStreet Bank, hole sponsors include Base2, BigFish Games, Commercial Office Interiors, DOMO, F5, Neudesic, OneNeck IT Solutions, Sabey Data Centers, the Seattle Mariners, Sound Financial Group, Tegile, VanderHouwen & Associates, Viawest Hybrid IT Solutions, Whitlock, Wolfe, Xtreme Consulting, and WTIA’s 401k Plan. Widenet Consulting sponsored the hole-in-one contest.