In photo: Elaine Taylor , left, with Sara Wold during a GAM tournament.
Elaine Taylor, a popular scoreboard calligrapher
at Golf Association of Michigan tournaments, will be remembered for her smile,
positive attitude, dependability and energy.
Elaine died last
Saturday after a long battle with cancer. She was 78.
Information on memorials and or funeral services
is not available at this time. The GAM will update this story as those details
become known. The GAM also plans to honor Taylor in some manner. Details will
be announced at a later date.
Taylor was a native
of Canada, and previously worked as an X-Ray Technician in California. She resided for much
of her life in Farmington Hills, volunteered for the Detroit Institute of Arts and was the mother of two sons, Mark and Matt. Matt is a PGA professional in Louisville, Ky.
Mark Taylor said his mother enjoyed her work at golf tournaments.
“She was a strong
woman, a positive person who loved everything about the golf tournaments, doing
the calligraphy, being on the rules committees,” he said. “She saw something
that needed to be done, and she did it. It’s the way she was about everything.”
Sara Wold, like
Elaine a GAM Board of Governor and tournament volunteer rules official and
starter for almost 30 years, will serve as the GAM President in 2018. She said
she will miss Elaine, who was often her roommate at tournaments.
“It was always so much fun to be with Elaine,”
she said. “We took a trip to Scotland through the GAM and it was wonderful. She
was always happy and friendly. “
Wold said Elaine
considered the GAM volunteers, staff and players as part of her family.
“You know for some
turning a score in is not a happy occasion, but she was friendly, caring and
smiling and so professional that she made it easier on them,” she said. “She
was dedicated. She made sure all the scores were posted correctly from the
first golfer in to the last one.”
Ken Hartmann, senior director of rules and
competitions for the GAM, worked with Elaine for the last 16 years.
“She took the
scoreboards over from another great governor, Gus Cosmos, and she was like the U.S. Postal Service, always there, in the rain, in the cold, it didn’t matter,” he said.
“The players, especially the older players,
knew her and she liked interacting with them. I can’t tell you how many of the
players have asked about her this last year when she was too sick to be at a
lot of our tournaments. We’re going to miss her work. She was a talented
calligrapher and they are hard to find. But we are going to miss just having
Elaine around, too. She was likable, so personable, had a great personality.
That’s what makes us sad right now.”
Justin Phillips is the tournament director
for the Michigan PGA, which Elaine also served as a scoreboard calligrapher for
many years. In recent years Phillips said Elaine would request to work just one
Michigan PGA tournament – the Michigan PGA Senior Open Championship.
“She knew all the
players, she enjoyed interacting with them and she was very much a part of that
tournament,” he said. “We’re deeply saddened. She will be greatly missed by all
of our staff and our players.”
Wold said any
tournament that Elaine worked seemed to have great comradery because she was
involved.
“I got to know her
pretty well over the years,” she said. “We all liked working with her, and she
was also just a real sweet lady, a good mother, wife and friend.”
