Pro golfers at home in NWA

Host looks forward to Kang’s stay, says she is part of family

ROGERS — Every year members of the Pinnacle Country Club area open their homes up to players competing in the LGPA tournament, which sometimes leads to unexpected relationships that last a lifetime.

Professional golfer Danielle Kang first stayed with the Akers family in 2012 during her first year in the tournament. LeAnn Akers now looks forward to another week with the woman who has become another daughter to her.

“She came to us as a rookie and quickly took up a place in our hearts. She’s my second daughter now,” Akers said.

The Walmart NW Arkansas Championship, which begins Monday is in its 12th year at the country club, and as the tournament continues, more and more players are choosing to stay with host families instead of living in a hotel for a week, event organizers said.

“It all started with just a few hosts back in 2007 and just increased in popularity from there,” said John Post, senior event coordinator for Octagon, a sports and entertainment content marketing firm that helps organize the tournament.

While the Rogers championship is not the only LPGA event in which players stay with local families, it is one of the most popular, said Claire Heffley, Octagon marketing and communications trainee.

So many players stay with families because of how welcoming the Pinnacle community is, Post said.

“These host homes are not just a place for these players to sleep, it’s a chance for them to build these really great relationships,” Post said. “These people do so much more than the minimum. They take care of the players and treat them like their own. It really makes the players choose this over a hotel.”

Out of the 144 players at this year’s tournament, 88 will stay with families living in and around the country club, Post said.

“She [Danielle Kang] came to us as a rookie and quickly took up a place in our hearts.”

— LeAnn Akers, host

It is not unusual for players to stay with the same family every year, and Akers and her family are no exception.

In order for a family to house a player for the first time, they need to contact Post. Some returning players directly contact their host family from the previous year, which Post said “makes it easier on everybody involved.”

On the players’ end, Octagon officials send out information regarding housing in April, Post said.

“Then from there they can just contact us or email us, and request to have a host,” Post said. “We have a database basically of all the families that have hosted in the past or people that have expressed interest in hosting … . And from there we’ll just coordinate it.

The impact the tournament has on the Rogers community outweighs any losses in tax revenue from the players staying with families, said J.R. Shaw, Visit Rogers executive director.

“The visibility for Rogers that the event brings to the region is undeniable,” Shaw said. “And honestly if you look at it from a numbers standpoint, the players are only a small part of the people who come to Rogers for this. So we are not losing anything.”

Shaw said he thinks that having the opportunity for residents to house players makes people around the

NWA Democrat-Gazette/CHARLIE KAIJO Patrice Openique (from right) of West Palm Beach, Fla., pulls a tarp over a walkway Friday with Exan Cefacile of Fort Pierce, Fla., and Isaiah De Saint-Hillaire of Port St. Lucie, Fla., at Pinnacle Country Club in Rogers. The annual Walmart NW Arkansas Championship will start today and go until Sunday.