Making the course available for such events has always been important to Eller and his late partner Ray Danner, who died last August.
Eller, who is also a PGA Club pro, is one of the two honorees selected for the 2009 Star Spangled Salute, an annual fundraiser for FiftyForward Donelson Station. Alexia Poe, director of public affairs for Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center, was also selected. Eller, who helped bring the LPGA Sara Lee Classic to Nashville, gets involved with some fundraisers personally. For the past four years he’s organized for the Morning Star Sanctuary, a shelter for abused women and children in Madison. “He’s been involved in breast cancer, things with the church, he’s worked with the American Cancer Society,” said Mike Malzone, one of the co-chairman of the Star Spangled Salute selection committee that selected Eller and Poe. “He doesn’t talk about himself much. He’s very humble.” Eller worked at Old Hickory Country Club as an assistant with his father, Harold, and eventually took over as the head pro there until 1985. The Harold Eller family was named 1993 recipient of the National Golf Foundation’s Jack Nicklaus Golf Family of the Year Award. “I think it’s important for a charity tournament that if they use golf as a fundraiser that the function go smoothly,” Eller said. One year a hole flooded and DCA Director of Development Beverly Baskin said Eller got a tractor and “ferried” the players across the water to the next hole.
Jack Marshall has organized the Michael Stanley Child Life Fund Golf Outing the past two years at the course. The Michael Stanley tournament supports specific programs at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt.