| Donna Andrews Tepatti Straddles Two Worlds The Pilot June 2007 |
BY PATRICIA SMITH: EQUESTRIAN CORRESPONDENT
The golf world of Pinehurst and the horse world of Southern Pines are separated by only seven miles of highway, but they
may as well be separated by the Great Wall of China. Seldom do the two worlds intersect.
Donna Andrews Tepatti bridges both worlds. Tepatti is a professional golfer who has been very successful on the Ladies
Professional Golf Association (LPGA) tour.
She is also a horsewoman. She and her husband, James, and their 1-year-old son, Connor, live on a horse farm in Southern
Pines.
"The horse people and the golfers are two totally different groups that don't seem to intermingle like I think they should,"
Tepatti says. "A lot of golfers don't know that Southern Pines is such a big horse area. I would like to see some of the
traditions of horse country, like Stoneybrook, promoted more to golf people. I think we can do a better job of showing golfers
what the horse community has to offer."
Horsewoman
It took Tepatti a few years to discover horse country after she moved here in 1989 and when she did she decided to fulfill a
lifelong dream of owning a horse.
"After I won my first golf tournament in 1993, I bought my first horse. Every time I won a tournament, I bought a horse," Tepatti
says. "I got into breeding horses and they multiplied until at one point I had eight horses because I got attached to the babies
and couldn't part with them."
Tepatti worked with a sports psychologist in college who told her if she was going to be a professional golfer, she needed an
outlet that would give her a mental break from the game of golf.
Tepatti decided her outlet would be horses and the farm work that goes along with owning horses. Tepatti rode as a child in
Lynchburg, Va., at a stable near her home. Like many 8-year-old girls who ride, she was always begging for a horse.
"Now that I know how much time horses take, I think I was lucky that my parents never bought me a horse," she says. "I may
never have become a golfer."
Horses provided a mental break from golf, and riding had the added benefit of strengthening her legs.
"The muscles I developed in riding helped stabilize my lower body in the golf swing," Tepatti says. "I think that's what made
me such an accurate golfer."
Professional Golfer
Tepatti showed an early talent for golf when she started beating her two brothers at the game. She played on a boys' high
school golf team because there was no girls' team.
"I enjoyed beating the boys," Tepatti says.
She went on to win the Virginia Women's State Amateur Championship five times and received a full scholarship to the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she earned a business degree.
She joined the LPGA in 1990. She won six times on the LPGA Tour in her 16-year career and posted many top-10 finishes,
including a victory at the 1994 Nabisco Dinah Shore, one of the LPGA's four major tournaments. Tepatti also served as
president of the LPGA in 2003 and 2004.
Tepatti has retired from competition but she will be a spectator cheering on the players at the U.S. Women's Open at Pine
Needles Lodge and Golf Club this week.
"I don't miss competition but I probably will get a little bit of a bug this week watching the girls play the course, saying to
myself, 'I can do that,'" Tepatti says.
Right now Tepatti has her hands full raising her young son, teaching golf full time at Pine Needles, working in the
family-owned Andrews and Tepatti, Inc. real estate business and caring for the animals on her farm.
Along with an assortment of dogs and cats, the Tepatti family currently has three polo ponies, one Dressage horse and five
miniature Sicilian donkeys on the farm.
"I do it (live on a horse farm) for a love of animals," Tepatti says. "I get up every morning and go feed and rub noses with the
horses and donkeys. The care of the animals is just as important to me as riding."
Giving Back
Tepatti considered becoming a veterinarian if she didn't pursue golf as a profession. Her love of animals motivated her to
become involved with Companion Animal Clinic of the Sandhills, a low-cost spay/neuter clinic.
"I was disappointed to find out that we have such a high euthanasia rate in the Sandhills because we have so many
unwanted cats and dogs," Tepatti says. "It is my hope that we can reduce the overpopulation of animals by providing
affordable spay/neuter services and put an end to the unnecessary euthanasia of dogs and cats."
Tepatti also finds time to give back to the golf community. She is on the board of First Tee of the Sandhills. First Tee of The
Sandhills provides the youth of the Sandhills area with a learning facility and educational programs that promote character
development and life-enhancing values through the game of golf.
"Right now, I feel like I'm going 24-7. Jamie (her husband of two years) and I feel like we never get caught up," Tepatti says.
Tepatti met her husband, whose sport is polo, at the 2004 Moore County Hounds Hunt Ball. The Hunt Ball is an annual social
event for supporters of the Moore County Hounds. Today, the Tepatti family represents a true merger of the horse world and
the golf world.
"I think we could make Pinehurst and Southern Pines a bigger and better place if the golfers in Pinehurst and the horse
people in Southern Pines worked together," she says. "There are a lot of similarities between the groups. I would like to see
the equestrian traditions promoted better to golfers that live here and to golfers who are visiting."
And it seems she has started the ball rolling in that direction.
Patricia Smith can be reached at fotobytocco @vbbi.us
