2027 USMA Golfing Grads Registration

Dear POTC Classmates, Friends and Families,

It was another resounding success at our recent Golfing Grads event for the first time in Williamsburg, Va. This event sold out in three days last Fall and had a record 23 West Point classes (from 1961 to 2009) participating with 239 registered players. POTC had our largest participation as well with 31 golfers, 5 guests and 15 spouses for a total of 53 attending. We were fortunate with pleasant weather that mostly avoided rain for the three days on the Gold and Green Courses. POTC had our highest relative showing as a team with a 5th place finish (out of 23). We had several individual and team prize winners – Dave Rodarte, Craig Wittman, Bob Mixon, Bill Martinez, Bob Weber, Dave Stevens and John Draper. Craig and Becky Wittman were fantastic hosts for our Tuesday night POTC dinner at the Jefferson Restaurant and many of us were introduced to Peanut soup over our two days in Williamsburg. If you want the recipe -let me know. 

This event was a team effort and a special thanks goes out to Doug Shaw and RC Anderson (co Captains and golf committee) – restaurant hosts (Mark Russell, Doug Shaw, RC Anderson, Todd Bacastow, Dave Stevens, Craig Wittman, Bobby Weber. Our hospitality suite OICs – Ben Withers, Bill Betson, Al Turner, Dave Molten, Eric Fardelmann, Doug Shaw, Mark Redlinger, and George Oliver. Pat Schado helps us stay in uniform with POTC golf shirts and everyone received a sleeve of POTC Pro V1 balls -don’t lose them, display them. 😊

Below are some great photos from the event. These were also posted with name captions on the class Facebook page. 

Here’s a link to “ Golfing Grads 2026 Williamsburg, Va -May 3 - 7” in my Dropbox:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/ix9s970l89mxr5p98t73z/ALeBTWLWqHSg-P1Ot5wVBSU?rlkey=7fahpn7a6mt9crgwas9jizju0&st=0z1czic1&dl=0

The event will return to Williamsburg and The Lodge Hotel (Marriott) again April 25 -29 in 2027. We will send out a couple of warning orders after Thanksgiving so everyone can prepare for the signup email. This will come promptly on the morning of Dec 1, 2026.

Signup is a two step process – 1) complete the electronic survey and 2) send in $100 by Zelle.   It is important that everyone has access to Zelle through your local bank provider or can team up with a classmate to have someone send in the $100 needed on Dec 1 to complete the registration process. 

This year the event filled quickly and we had approximately 30 grads go on to  a wait list.  Eventually with cancellations, everyone on the wait list was offered an opportunity to participate although some of these came days before the event. It is best to sign up asap when you get my email Dec 1 – every minute counts as the response are time stamped on a first come first serve basis. 

The Golfing Grads committee is working to add a third course in the Williamsburg area and expand the event to 300 (100 per course).

We would encourage everyone to get a handicap index if you don’t already have one. I get a handicap index through my Chicago District Golf Association and you may have one through your club system – the industry standard though is the USGA  https://getahandicap.usga.org/?utm_source=organic&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=gahB. My cost is $55 and if you enter your zip code through this USGA site you will have options come available. 

Over the years, I have kept a historical record of the POTC golf events from 2014 onward (attached) for our POTC class only and the multi class Golfing Grads which is in its 39th year now in 2027. My records do not capture the events that occurred before I started playing -as I know we had events before 2014. 

Apologies if you see any obvious errors, so feel free to send me a note if you see something.

It was great playing golf with all of those that could make it and let’s do this again next year – have a great Summer,

John