Andy is again bringing some of his good friends together to help in the fight against cancer for the 2012 Andy North and Friends event.

View Andy's friends from previous events: 2009 | 2010 | 2011 Andy North
Two time US Open champion Andy North had no choice but to hit the links. In the seventh grade, the professional golfer wasn't particularly interested in the sport and instead opted to play football and basketball. When a knee injury forced him to give up contact sports, he turned to golf as an alternative and the game quickly became a passion and ultimately his life's work.

At the University of Florida, his play landed him All-American honors three times. After racking up amateur victories, the Wisconsin native turned professional in 1972 and immediately embarked on a successful PGA career. He won the 1978 and 1985 U.S. Open Championships, one of only 16 men to win the event more than once. He also played on the 1978 World Cup and 1985 Ryder Cup teams and became one of the sport's top career earners.

Now a successful golf commentator for ABC & ESPN, Andy continues to prove himself to be one of golf's best on the Senior PGA Tour.

Robin Yount
Robin R. Yount is a former Major League Baseball player who spent his entire career with the Milwaukee Brewers (1974-1993). In 1999, he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Yount developed into an excellent hitter, eventually posting a career .285 batting average with 251 home runs, 1632 runs scored and 1406 runs batted in. His 11,008 career at-bats is the seventh-most in Major League Baseball history, and he ranks 17th on the all-time hit list. Yount collected more hits in the decade of the 1980s than any other player (1731), leading the American League with 210 hits in 1982.

Since retiring from baseball, Yount has increased his participation in two of his other passions — professional motorcycle and auto racing. In June 2008, Yount announced the creation of a new lemonade drink, Robinade. A portion of the proceeds of the sales goes to charity. Sherri Steinhauer
Sherri Steinhauer currently plays on the LPGA Tour and on the Legends Tour. A Madison native, she attended the University of Texas-Austin. Her rookie season on the LPGA Tour was 1986. She has won eight tournaments on the Tour, including two major championships, the 1992 du Maurier Classic and 2006 Women's British Open. She also won the British Open in 1998 and 1999 before it became an LPGA major. Steinhauer was one of two assistant captains for the United States 2011 Solheim Cup team.

Adam Burish
Adam Burish, a Madison native, currently plays for the Dallas Stars of the National Hockey League. 2010 Stanley Cup champion with Chicago Blackhawks. Prior to this NHL career, Burish played at UW-Madison and served as captain of the national champion 2005-06 team. In 2006, both the Badger men's and women's hockey teams won NCAA Championships, with Adam's sister Nikki on the women's team.



Terry Gannonn
A sportscaster for ABC Sports, ESPN and the Golf Channel, Terry Gannon's work has included a variety of extensive sporting events, including college basketball, as well as figure skating, golf, college football, soccer and the Olympic Games. He began his career in 1988 with ESPN after excelling in positions with sports programming syndicators Raycom Media and Jefferson-Pilot Communications.

Gannon was a two-time Academic All-American basketball player at North Carolina State University and was a member of its 1983 National Championship team coached by Jim Valvano.

Michael Tirico
Michael Tirico is an announcer for ESPN's presentation of Monday Night Football, and second lead broadcaster for ESPN's presentation of the NBA. In addition, Tirico hosts a multitude of programming on ESPN/ABC. He was the host of ABC's golf coverage from 1996 to 2007, and continues in that capacity for ESPN's U.S. Open, Masters and British Open golf coverage.

He also joined ESPN's broadcast team for the 2009 U.S. Open Tennis Championships, and is a studio host for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Tirico was formerly a play-by-play announcer for college football on both ESPN and ABC.

Billy Andrade
Golfer Billy Andrade played on the U.S. team in the 1987 Walker Cup, and turned professional in the same year. He has four wins on the PGA Tour: the 1991 Kemper Open and Buick Classic, the 1998 Bell Canadian Open, and the 2000 Invensys Classic. He has been featured in the top 50 of the Official World Golf Rankings. Andrade is also an active contributor to charity. He and fellow PGA Tour professional Brad Faxon received the Golf Writers of America's 1999 Charlie Bartlett Award for their "unselfish contributions to society", and the American Heart Association's 2002 Gold Heart Award in recognition of their charity efforts. Together, they run Billy Andrade/Brad Faxon Charities for Children, Inc., a non-profit organization that, as of 2005, has donated over $3 million to needy children in Rhode Island and southern Massachusetts.

Bo Van Pelt
Golfer Bo Van Pelt has played on both the Nationwide Tour and the PGA Tour. He has been featured in the top 50 of the Official World Golf Rankings. Van Pelt initially started his career on the Nationwide Tour and won the Omaha Classic, his first and only Nationwide Tour title, in 2003 after shooting a final round of 62. He now plays on the PGA Tour and captured his maiden victory in 2009 at the U.S. Bank Championship in Milwaukee, beating John Mallinger in a sudden death playoff on the second extra hole. He won the CIMB Asia Pacific Classic Malaysia in 2011, an Asian Tour event and an unofficial PGA Tour event. On April 8, 2012, he scored a tournament low 64 in the 2012 Masters Tournament, propelling him up the leaderboard to a final tie for 17th place.

Bob Murphy
Bob Murphy was formerly a member of the PGA Tour and currently plays on the Champions Tour. Murphy has won 21 tournaments as a professional. Murphy turned professional in 1967 and won five tournaments on the PGA Tour. He was a member of the victorious U.S. team in the 1975 Ryder Cup competition. His best finish in a major tournament was a second-place tie at the 1970 PGA Championship. Murphy won 11 times on the Senior PGA Tour (now the Champions Tour).

He joined NBC Sports in November 1999, and was a tower announcer for the PGA Tour on NBC through 2009. He was inducted into the Florida Sports Hall of Fame in 2011.

Tom Weiskopf
Golfer Tom Weiskopf played on the PGA and Champions Tour. His most successful decade was the 1970s, and he won 16 PGA Tour titles between 1968 and 1982. After winding down his tournament career, Weiskopf has become a noted golf course architect. Weiskopf's first win on the PGA Tour came at the Andy Williams-San Diego Open Invitational in 1968, and fifteen more followed by 1982. His career season was 1973, when he won seven tournaments around the world, including the British Open at Royal Troon, and he would finish that year ranked second in the world according to Mark McCormack's world golf rankings. This was to remain his only major championship victory, but he was a four-time runner-up at The Masters and also had a T2 finish at the 1976 U.S. Open. Weiskopf joined the Senior PGA Tour in 1993 and won several senior tournaments, including one senior major, the 1995 U.S. Senior Open.

Junior Bridgeman
Junior Bridgeman is a retired basketball player. A 6'5" guard/forward from the University of Louisville, Bridgeman was drafted by the Los Angeles Lakers in 1975 and immediately traded with Brian Winters, David Meyers and Elmore Smith to the Milwaukee Bucks for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Bridgeman went on to have a solid 12-year NBA career, spent mostly with the Bucks, and he scored 11,517 total points. Although he was a sixth man for most of his career, he averaged double figures in scoring for nine consecutive seasons. He played in 711 games for the Bucks, still the most in franchise history, although he started only 105 times. His #2 jersey was retired by the Bucks franchise in 1988. Currently, Bridgeman is the President of Bridgeman Foods LLC. His company owns and operates over 160 Wendy's restaurant franchises across the country. He was elected to the Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame in 1999.

Kellen Winslow
Kellen Winslow is a former American professional football player in the National Football League. A member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, he is widely recognized as one of the greatest tight ends in the league's history. Winslow played his entire NFL career from 1979 to 1987 with the San Diego Chargers after being selected in the first round of the 1979 NFL Draft.

He played college football for the University of Missouri, where he was a consensus All-American. He was also inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. Winslow is currently the athletic director at Central State University.

John Leuer
Jon Leuer was drafted by the Milwaukee Bucks in the 2nd round of the 2011 NBA Draft (40th overall). Widely considered one of the top players in the Big Ten and the nation in 2011 after leading the Badgers in scoring and rebounding in both his junior and senior season. Fully healed from a wrist injury that cost him 9 games in 2010, Leuer had a tremendous senior season that saw him rank in the conference's top five in both scoring and rebounds. With a skilled inside-outside game perfectly suited for the swing offense, Leuer owns an accurate jumper that extends to 3-point range and surprisingly adept ball-handling abilities. Leuer was one of 10 collegiate players invited to play on the USA Select Team in the summer of 2010 in Las Vegas and New York City, helping prepare Team USA for the 2010 FIBA World Championships. He entered high school as a guard, but after a 10-inch growth spurt before senior year, moved to the post. The Orono, Minn. native posted 68 double-digit scoring games, including a streak of 39 consecutive games. Leuer had 22 career games with at least 20 points and registered eight double-doubles. He played in 123 career games with 68 starts.

You
You've loved the game of golf for as long as you can remember, even more so when you can help to benefit others while having a great time with friends and family.

Whether you're interested in the Golf Getaway or An Evening with Andy North and Friends, or even if you or your company are interested in becoming a sponsor; you can join us as we bring friends together to fight cancer.