At the 104th Annual Meeting of Washington Golf, held October 25th at Bear Creek Country Club, Derek Liddell of Renton, Wash., was voted onto the association’s Board of Directors.
The skills he brings to the Board are considerable. A graduate of the University of Washington with a B.S. degree in electrical engineering, for most of the past 20 years Derek has worked as a product developer at Microsoft. He had previously served on the Board of the King County Library System.
But it is the game of golf, of course, that has brought him here.
Since 2015, Derek has been organizing tournaments and events for the AP National Golf Club, a competitive, social and diverse club that travels to courses throughout the state. He still serves as the club’s handicap chair, and since 2022 has also been the club’s president.
This past summer, Derek was instrumental in bringing WA Golf in as a partner with the Juneteenth tournament he organized for AP National. This event also contributed $500 of its proceeds to the WA Golf Youth on Course program through the Washington Golf Foundation.
“I feel I can help bring the game to people who might not otherwise have the opportunity,” Derek says. “I always challenge people in the clubs that I play with – ‘What can we do to give back to the game; how can we be of service to help grow the game in other communities.’”
Given Derek’s longtime connection with golf, his ascension to the Board of the game’s governing body in the state of Washington – which represents the goals, dreams, and the entire structure of the region’s golf community, of everyone who’s picked up a golf club – seems as natural as can be.
He likes to recount how he was born on June 18, 1972. “That was the day of the final round of the 1972 U.S. Open, held that year at Pebble Beach, which Jack Nicklaus won,” he says with a smile. There doesn’t seem to be any question in his mind that the game would play a part in his own life.
Fortunately for Derek, his father, Jim Liddell, was a golfer. “He played whenever he could,” he recalls. “Four or five days a week. And I tagged along with him, hitting balls on the range, looking for lost balls.”
His father played out of Jefferson Park in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of south Seattle, and would later become a member at Meridian Valley Country Club. It was at Meridian Valley that Derek first became exposed to the game’s bright stars, with the club hosting the LPGA Tour’s annual Safeco Classic from 1982-1999. “I can remember my dad bringing Nancy Lopez and Jo Ann Washam to our house during those tournaments,” Derek says. “To see them up close, personally, and to see how genuine they seemed, was really special.”
But he considers the year 1997 to be the turning point in his interest in the game. “Two big things happened for me that year,” he says. “I got married, and Tiger Woods won the Masters. When he put on that Green Jacket, from that moment on, I was all in.”
Derek also says what was most impactful on his life was his father’s friendship with Bill Wright.
“They were best friends since childhood,” Derek says. “Both grew up in the Central District of Seattle, went to school together, played at Collins Field. When I was growing up, I spent a lot of time around Bill and his family. Looking back, I realize how lucky I was. He was like a second father to me.”
In the 1950s, Wright was one of the first participants in the Fir State junior golf program, based at Jefferson Park. Within a year of picking up the game, he was the city’s junior champion.
Wright would later be inducted into the Pacific Northwest Golf Hall of Fame, and also the Western Washington University Athletic Hall of Fame (for both golf and basketball).
What etched Wright’s name into the history of the game was his winning the 1959 U.S. Amateur Public Links, becoming the first African American to win a USGA national championship. His accomplishment has been enshrined in the USGA Museum in Far Hills, N.J.
In 2009, the USGA, WA Golf, First Tee, and Jefferson Park declared October 10 as “Bill Wright Day” to honor the 50th anniversary of Wright’s historic victory. A celebration was held at Jefferson Park, and Wright himself, who at the time had been a longtime golf instructor in southern California, attended the day and conducted a clinic for the First Tee and Fir State juniors.
Wright passed in 2021, and in 2024, after efforts by community organizers and the Seattle Parks & Recreation Department, Jefferson Park was officially renamed as the Bill Wright Golf Complex. And Derek had a significant hand in making this happen.
“I consider that one of the biggest accomplishments of my life,” Derek says. “It wasn’t until around 2000, after I’d really gotten bit by the golf bug, that I realized how great Bill was in the game, and what he had accomplished in his career. I really wanted to honor that.”
“I was lucky,” he says. “My dad was around, was involved with my life and what I was doing. He introduced me to golf. Lots of kids are not that lucky. For most of my adult life, my question has been: How do we help those who have nobody to introduce them to golf?”
The game is lucky to have Derek Liddell.