Volunteers find love at the Deutsche Bank Championship

Colin Young has been a volunteer at the Deutsche Bank Championship for over a decade. He started as a marshal on the 18th hole, and for the past five years has been the hole captain at the fifth hole. Year after year over Labor Day weekend, the Deutsche Bank Championship celebrates the best of New England at TPC Boston. But for Colin and his wife Deb, the 2011 tournament was unlike any other.

New to the Boston area, Deb decided to volunteer at the 2011 Deutsche Bank Championship and was randomly, and luckily, assigned to Colin’s team on the fifth hole. On the final day of the tournament, Colin had rotated Deb to work the tee box, and the rest was history.

“Deb rotated down to the fifth tee, and she had been there for a while, and I completely forgot about her and left her down there,” Young said. “She ran the tee for most of the day and did a really good job. I kind of felt guilty for having abandoned her down at the tee, so I emailed her after the tournament and asked if she would like to play golf with me.”

After meeting during the 2011 tournament, Colin and Deb tied the knot in September 2014. Picking a date proved to be harder than expected.

“We were looking for a date, and we wanted to do it in early September, but we couldn’t because of the tournament,” Young said. “There was no way we were going to miss the tournament. We did in fact think about skipping the [2014] tournament, but we decided it just wasn’t going to work.”

Both individually and as husband and wife, volunteering at the Deutsche Bank Championship has become part of the Youngs’ yearly routine. The success of the tournament is in part to the contributions of volunteers like Colin and Deb. Each year more than 1,500 volunteers help make the Deutsche Bank Championship a success.

“You’re getting close to golf at a high level, and you do get to see a fair amount of play,” Young said as a recruiting message to new volunteers. “You get to interact with the spectators a lot, and you’re having fun and providing a service.”

Learn more about volunteering at the Deutsche Bank Championship.

As for Colin and Deb, they will both be back at the Deutsche Bank Championship in 2016.

“My biggest fear is that one day they will take Deb away and make her a hole captain,” Young said.