MAY/JUNE 08
'The Tiz'

When a person has spent as much time around the game of golf as Dennis Tiziani, outsiders are bound to think his life revolves around the sport. But Tiziani, a man with golf credentials a mile long on his résumé, insists that the game is last on his list of priorities.  

A self-described rebel and someone who has a hard time responding to authority, it took Tiziani over 40 years to realize what truly is important in life. Though he played on the PGA Tour from 1969-71, he’s still not sure if he was doing it for the “right reasons.” He was able to live the life of a drifter, moving from town to town on his own, competing at the highest level possible. But looking back, he questions his motivation for being there.

It wasn’t until he stepped away from competitive play in the 1980s and began coaching golf at the University of Wisconsin that he was able to determine his priorities: religion, family, education and then golf. Once Tiziani got those straight, he was able to see exactly what it was he wanted from life. When he learned that he had to help others in order to help himself, his life began to fall into place.    

The early years

 It would seem that Dennis Tiziani had the kind of upbringing that would mold him into a golfer. The son of Ironwood, Mich., golf professional Caeser Tiziani, Dennis was born on May 9, 1943. He grew up in a typical Italian family living in an Italian village; his mother Elizabeth was a housewife, and his grandmother lived with them. Dennis and his siblings Mary and Larry attended a parochial school, St. Ambrose, and he was a church altar boy.

During summertime, when Dennis wasn’t hopping trains leaving the nearby iron mines and going to the local fishing hole and hunting grounds, he worked at the golf course, Gogebic CC in Ironwood, where he helped his father and learned about agronomy, bartending and food and beverage sales. He picked up his first golf club at the age of 3.

“That’s where I was all day, every day, so (I was) a course rat, basically,” he said.

Tiziani played golf through high school, where he also was a standout basketball player. His weekends consisted of “short stop” golf events throughout the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Northern Wisconsin and Minnesota. Tiziani earned a basketball scholarship to Northland College in Ashland, and he also played golf. In 1964 he graduated with a business administration degree, and two years later he married his high school sweetheart Bobbie.

Tiziani spent the next few years teaching and coaching high school sports, but in 1967 he and Bobbie moved to Cleveland, where he took a job at Price Waterhouse & Co., a public accounting firm. The partners at Price Waterhouse soon learned of Tiziani’s golf ability, so they used him to procure business through the game. In 1969, the partners asked if he would think about joining the PGA Tour. Tiziani had his first sponsor.

“At that time, when you became a PGA member, you could go out and try to qualify for a tournament, so that’s what I did,” he said.

For the next three years, Tiziani traveled around the United States, qualifying for more PGA Tour events every year. By 1971, he’d made considerable progress, qualifying for about 30 of the 40 events on his schedule. But Tiziani says those years – which he doesn’t talk about very often – were a personal struggle for him, and he wasn’t playing the game for the right reasons. Tiziani believes now that he was motivated by fear – fear of not succeeding – and greed.

“I got to meet a lot of people, and a lot of encouraging people along the way, but the fact remains ... that even though I was doing that, I don’t know if that was the happiest time,” Tiziani said. “ And it wasn’t the happiest time because maybe I wasn’t doing it just for love of the game.”

But by then Tiziani also had three small children – Gina, born in 1967; Nicki, born in 1968; and Mario, born in 1970 – and his wife Bobbie was home alone with them for 25 to 30 weeks of the year.

Bobbie said those years were hard on her, but she really doesn’t remember much of the struggle.

“It was hard because I had three small kids,” she said. “My oldest turned 3 a week after my youngest was born. You just do it, you have to do it. When I think back now, I ask myself how I did it. But you just kind of live life day-to-day and it works out. And it did work out.”

In 1971, Tiziani packed up his clubs and headed to Madison to work as the golf professional at Cherokee CC, a position he thought would be temporary until he could pick up more sponsors and rejoin the PGA Tour.

“I got to town here and had 63 bucks, that’s all I had,” he said. “I had nothing – no car, a big mouth and golf clubs. And man I could work them both.”

Joe Boucher is a longtime friend and business associate of Tiziani. Boucher, an attorney in Madison, said Tiziani is outgoing, charismatic, direct, aggressive and assertive, and he tells it like it is.

“Some people criticize him for that, and I admire that,” Boucher said. “You’re going to make some enemies that way once in a while, but you’re also not going to confuse anybody and people will respect you.”

Boucher said he’s confident Tiziani’s attitude and ambition are what have made the man the successful businessperson he is today.

Setting priorities

 If you know much about golf in Wisconsin, and particularly in the Madison area, you probably already know that Tiziani never made it back to the PGA Tour. In fact, he never left Cherokee CC. Today, at 65 years old, Tiziani is the majority shareholder of Cherokee Park, Inc., a real estate company that owns the country club, where his title is president and CEO. He owns Tiziani Golf Car Corp., the largest golf cart distributor in North America, and he also serves as swing coach to PGA Tour player and son-in-law Steve Stricker, who is married to Nicki. His numerous business ventures have made Tiziani a wealthy man.

After Tiziani settled in Madison in the early 1970s, he continued to play competitive golf in the Wisconsin Section of the PGA. Throughout the ’70s and up until 1985, Tiziani racked up countless wins in state events, and he played and finished well in several national PGA events. He was named the Wisconsin PGA player of the year in 1975, ’76, ’82 and ’84. Tiziani competed in three U.S. Opens and was the 1976 Wisconsin State Open champion, as well as a five-time runner-up.

In 1977, Tiziani also took on the role of men’s golf coach at the UW, and in 1989, his daughter Nicki’s junior season, he took over for Chris Regenberg and became the women’s coach, too. Tiziani led the men’s team to back-to-back Big Ten titles in 1993 and ’94, the team’s first since 1957. He sent three teams to the NCAA regional championship, and two advanced to the national championship. His son Mario, now a member of the Nationwide Tour, played at the UW from 1989-92. Mario was named Big Ten freshman of the year the same year his father was coach of the year.

As the women’s coach for 14 seasons, Tiziani led the team in 1994 to its only Big Ten championship. He sent three teams to the NCAA regional championship, and in 2001, Allie Blomquist became the first and only individual to advance under Tiziani to the NCAA championships. In 2003, the year Tiziani stepped down as coach of both teams, the women’s team advanced to the NCAA championships, where it finished 24th.

But perhaps Tiziani’s greatest accomplishment during his coaching years didn’t happen on the golf course. That time is when Tiziani said he “got life figured out.” He found his relationship with God and set his priorities straight: religion, family, education and golf. He also said he came to understand women while coaching them. He softened a bit. His daughter Nicki said she noticed the change in her father.

“As he went on, you could definitely see that he did have a better understanding (of life),” Nicki said. “I think there’s been a transformation for him in dealing with his coaching and dealing with kids. It kind of kept him young, yet kind of helped him grow at the same time.”

Giving back

 In his younger years, Tiziani had no idea he would make a career out of the game he grew up playing, though he said “it always came back to that.” And because he was able to make such a successful career out of a sport he loves, Tiziani has been able to give back in ways most can’t imagine. Though he also likes to hunt and collect guns, today his biggest hobby is “about all these people who have a need.

“(I realized) the only way that I’m really going to get ahead is if I help other people get ahead,” he said.

And he has.

Along with Stricker, Tiziani is involved with VSA Arts of Wisconsin, a charity aimed at expanding the capabilities, confidence and quality of life for children and adults with disabilities by providing programs in dance, drama, creative writing, music and visual art. He also raises money for breast cancer awareness, and he is involved – again with Stricker – with the Wisconsin chapter of the Fragile X Foundation. Fragile X is a genetic condition that can impact those affected in a variety of ways, from learning disabilities to more severe cognitive or intellectual disabilities. And recently, Tiziani has donated money to elementary schools on the north side of Madison, where Cherokee CC and Tiziani’s home are located, so the schools can have the portable computer stations they so desperately need.

“He comes off as being kind of a tough guy,” Nicki said, “but he’d give you the shirt off his back, too.”