Pepper won the event in 1992 with Dan Forsman.

“I played with three different partners,” she said. “Dan Forsman was the first and we weren’t very good at the beginning. He was a bomber, but he wasn’t very straight. One hole was a dogleg right with water on the right side and as we were on the tee, I looked back and caught him giving himself the sign of the cross.

“But both of us had tremendous years in 1992, so we were supposed to be in the conversation. In the prior years, we hadn’t even teed off on the proper side on the weekend. That was our goal. Just get us on the right side of the golf course and see how it goes. And, sure enough, we won.

“I also had some very good tournaments with Jeff Sluman who is, to this day, one of my dearest friends. The first year we played together, we spent more money on wine in Tarpon Springs, (Florida) than we won. We shipped it out of the tournament office as olive oil, because you couldn’t ship alcohol. The tournament director shipped it all home for us.”

Tschetter also had multiple partners over the years. “I played with Billy for seven or eight years, but I also played with John Cook, Robert Gamez and Chris DiMarco. And it was always fun.

“But it was also important financially for the LPGA players,” Tschetter said. “It was one of our biggest paydays. The year after I won with Billy, I won an LPGA Tour tournament and made like $67,000. I’d made $110,000 for the mixed team.”

Pepper had a similar story. “The year Dan and I won, I had just bought a house and paid cash for it,” Pepper said. “I never told him, but I needed to win a golf tournament so that I didn’t have to take out a loan to pay my income taxes for the next quarter. That win was big for me, personally, but it was big for all the girls. I think it was the largest paycheck Donna Andrews ever made, and she won a major championship.”

It was also a chance for fans to see Hall of Famers from both sides of the game playing in one event.

Grant Thornton Invitational Sparks Memories From Mixed-Team Champions

Related Articles