TERI YAMADA | April 23, 1958 – January 8, 2025
I am now on the wrong side of the turf. Not many can claim a 40-year career in golf with only a mediocre ability to play the game. But I was lucky to work with a variety of turf companies and associations including 18 years at the Royal Canadian Golf Association (RCGA), now Golf Canada.
I surprised my [family] by selecting an agriculture degree in environmental horticulture. As it worked out, agriculture was my key to the world, allowing me to study landscaping in Japan and greenhouse work in France.
Upon returning to Canada and working in the fertilizer industry, golf course machinery, irrigation and golf course construction, I was hired to redevelop the Green Section for the RCGA. That included working with golf course superintendents preparing national championships; introducing the Audubon Co-operative Sanctuary Program to Canada; and developing the Canada Turfgrass Research Foundation (CTRF). Being an 8-yr member of the USGA Turfgrass & Environmental Research Committee helped me to properly establish the CTRF. I enjoyed ten years hosting a live, phone-in garden clinic for AM 900 CHML in Hamilton every Saturday morning in the 90s. At the same time, I worked with golf course superintendents across Canada. They were a hard-working, under-appreciated group of people with whom I really respected and enjoyed working with.
In 2019, I was welcomed to be one of the first female members of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews in Scotland. That was truly one of the greatest honors a golfer can receive.
I can only apologize to my best friend and love of my life Doug Moxon. You did not sign up for these last few months. I was lucky to have found someone with whom I could start and end every day laughing. I just wish we could have had more time together.
Thank you to everyone with whom I shared an interesting chat, a great meal, or a big laugh. You know who you are.
The foregoing was excerpted from Teri’s self-penned obituary. Teri was diagnosed with sporadic CJD in April 2024, a one in a million occurrence. She opted to determine her departure with MAID (medical assistance in dying).
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