Memorial Tennis Ball Golf Tournament volunteer Robin “Ike” Isaacson walks the nine-hole course at the Northern Lights Campground during grooming last weekend. The event, which starts at noon Saturday, will raise money for several different causes, including the Republic Fishing Derby Fireworks, the medical needs of a local family and Gifts from Kev. (Photo courtesy of Kim Isaacson)

REPUBLIC — You have to be determined to golf in the winter in the Upper Peninsula. But that Yooper determination is just what organizers of the sixth annual Memorial Tennis Ball Golf Tournament or TBGolf 2020 are hoping to see on Saturday.

It’s a new location, the Northern Lights Campground in Republic, with a renewed message about community and kindness, co-organizer Chelsea Anderson said.

Participants should arrive at noon with a tennis ball in hand to play the approximately half-mile nine-hole course. The entrance fee for the event is $20. Organizers will provide the rest, Anderson said, including the golf clubs.

“Our prizes are $75, $50 and $25 per category for men and women,” Anderson said. “But nobody is out here to win some big championship check. It’s the event. It’s the cause. Everybody is all for it.”

She said many participants make a day of it, playing on the course from noon until dark and then heading over to the Pine Grove where the group holds raffles.

Organizers are excited about this year’s new central location, and are grateful to the township for allowing them to use the campground near Munson Park on Kloman Avenue.

“We are having it there this year because of the God-awful ice conditions. We just kind of lucked out that the township was completely supportive of the event and they OK’d having it on their property,” Anderson said.

The tournament, which was started as an effort to raise money for the fireworks that coincide with Republic’s annual Fishing Derby in July, soon morphed to incorporate the idea that residents in small towns take care of one another.

In 2014, the second year of the tournament, the small band of organizers decided to help friend and Republic resident Andy Rosslund who battled amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. They gave Rosslund a portion of the proceeds to use toward medical bills.

After he passed away later that year, the group approached Rosslund’s wife and asked if they could hold the tournament as a memorial in his honor.

“All of that went great and we have always done medical donations where half the money raised goes to somebody in need in the community for medical expenses,” Anderson said.

But this year, out of respect for the wishes of the Rosslund family, the group is switching gears. The proceeds from the event will still benefit three causes: the fireworks; a local family chosen by the event organizers who is dealing with a medical issue; and Gifts from Kev, a toy drive in honor of 6-month old Kevin Cote who passed away unexpectedly in 2015.

The group has recently found another reason to shift focus, after it lost a member to suicide in 2019, Anderson said.

She said this year’s event will be held in honor of that founding member, and as a reminder to people that you are never alone and “that people need you and love you.”

“We want to make this a really bright day in February,” Anderson said. “You know, you don’t see a lot of sad people in the summer on an 80-degree day. Especially in the wintertime, who doesn’t need a reminder. Winter is hard, snow is hard, life is hard. And it’s especially hard for us in the winter. We forget all the good. That’s what we want to focus on.”

For more information about the tournament, visit the TBGolf 2020 event page on Facebook.

Lisa Bowers can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 242.