by Janie Franz
Six years ago when Cheryl I. Proctor-Rogers, 47, married Terry Rogers, a retired detective Lieutenant of the Michigan State Police and currently the Chief investigator for Dominick’s Foods, she faced a choice. “[It was] the option of sitting for four hours or more in a golf cart reading my Reader’s Digest or joining my husband in what seemed to be a very challenging sport,” she says. Golf won.
Holding a handicap of 24, Proctor-Rogers plays eight days a month during the season in Buffalo Grove, Illinois, which runs from May to October. What she enjoys about the game is the fact that it’s a personal game. “It is much like playing billiards where you can be competing with someone else, but you’re really competing with yourself,” she says.
“You’re always trying to beat your best score.” And, there is always something new. “You never have the same rounds. You could play the same course every day, but there’s always going to be new challenges.” She also adds, “I find it just fascinating how in tune the physical and the mental have to be in this game.”
Proctor-Rogers is a member of the Executive Women’s Golf Club, Chicago Chapter, and the Tee Timers Golf League in the Chicago area. She also was the 2005 Vice President and Chair for Rally for a Cure that was sponsored by the Sherwood Ladies Golf League (nine hole) in Buffalo Grove. Her dedication tied her for Golfer of the Year for 2005.
Her favorite tournament is her own CPR Annual Birthday Tee-Off that started with only eight golfers in 2003 and had grown to 35 players in 2005. “The tournament has grown by word of mouth,” she says.
“My cart partner for the last three years has been 5-time Olympian Willye White,” Proctor-Rogers says. “She provides me with the calm I need, always reminding me that unlike other events I organize, I’m to have fun at this one! Making a contribution to a charity makes all the work worth it.”
Proctor-Rogers selects a different charity each year. “In 2004, with 16 players, we made a contribution of $600 to the Teach Foundation in Los Angeles (Therapies Reaching and Educating Autistic Children). Last year, we made a contribution of $1,000 to the Susan Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. This year’s tournament will be held August 19, and the charity will be La Rabida Children’s Hospital.”
“It’s different networking on a golf course than it is at a cocktail party. It’s four to five hours of concentrated time with one or two people.”
Some of the players who support this tournament have been new friends she has met on the golf course. “Golf has helped me so much just in developing relationships,” Proctor-Rogers says. “I’m amazed at the networking that takes place on the golf course!”
As Corporate Affairs Director at HBO and the current national President and CEO of the Public Relations Society of America (an office only one other African American has held in PRSA’s sixty-year history), Proctor-Rogers tries to squeeze in as much golf as she can. At first, this was purely for recreation and mental calming, but over time it has become an avenue for networking. “It’s different networking on a golf course than it is at a cocktail party. It’s four to five hours of concentrated time with one or two people,” she says. “They get to see your personality. They get to see how competitive you are. Then you end up talking about business or strategy. I’ve made great connections that have enhanced my resourcefulness for my association with the Public Relations Society of America and with Home Box Office.
Proctor-Rogers’s children, Myisha Proctor (20) and Chantel Proctor (16), unfortunately do not play the game. But there is hope that their mother’s enthusiasm about the sport may rub off. Contact: CPTRTeeOff@sbcglobal.net.
[ This article appeared in the Fall 2006 print magazine]
