High school golfers from across West Virginia teed off the second leg of the Tri-State Cup championship on Tuesday at Edgewood Country Club in what was rebranded as the Maddox Potter Capital City Classic.
As they did for much of the 2024 season, when Potter, a George Washington golfer who died of cancer on Jan. 24, players wore lapel pins in the shape of a yellow ribbon to honor one of their own.
"It means a lot to honor him and help raise awareness for support of fighting this terrible disease," said Davey Potter, Maddox's father and now the coach of Charleston Catholic's golf team. "The golf community is so close."
The pins were introduced a year ago by GW coach BJ Calabrese for the Patriots. As awareness of Maddox Potter's fight grew, other teams requested the pins and began wearing them themselves.
Some top high school golfers in West Virginia are shown, on Thursday, Aug. 7, 2025, at the Maddox Potter Capital City Classic high school golf tournament at Edgewood Country Club near Sissonville. From left are: Evan Toler, 16, University High; Will Biddington, 16, University High; Brody Williams, 15, Morgantown High; Angela Yao, 15, Morgantown High; William Johnson, 17, George Washington; Lee Willard, 17, George Washington; Parker O'Dell, 15, Hurricane.
- CHRISTOPHER MILLETTE | Gazette-Mail
Prior to the beginning of the Maddox Potter Capital City Classic high school golf tournament, Jennifer Potter (from left), alongside Davey Potter, Brooks Potter, 10; and Lennox Potter, 13, addresses golfers on Thursday, Aug. 7, 2025, at Edgewood Country Club near Sissonville. The tournament was renamed this year in honor of the couple's eldest son, Maddox, who died in January 2025 at 16.
- CHRISTOPHER MILLETTE | Gazette-Mail
Shown here on the course putting green prior to the tournament, 114 golfers from 25 West Virginia schools competed, on Thursday, Aug. 7, 2025, at the Maddox Potter Capital City Classic high school golf tournament at Edgewood Country Club near Sissonville.
- CHRISTOPHER MILLETTE | Gazette-Mail
Calabrese approached the Potter family about renaming the Capital City Classic in Maddox's honor. Calabrese said the Potters and the Maddox Potter Foundation were on board immediately.
"They loved it," Calabrese said. "Then I thought I have to see if the [West Virginia Golf Association] would be on board."
Chris Slack, executive director of the WVGA, said, "We were all in," when Calabrese approached him about changing the name of the tournament.
The trophy awarded to Hurricane, the repeat champion of the tournament, showed the previous name on it, but Slack said that going forward, that award will bear Maddox Potter's name as well.
"All summer long [during the junior tour] you'd see so many pins out there on the course," Slack said. "The GW team wore them for a long time. The junior golf world was united behind it."
Calabrese said the Maddox Potter Foundation helped with the funding of the tournament as part of its mission to honor its namesake's memory.Â
Davey Potter said the foundation's main purpose, raising money for cancer research, has contributed $40,000 to that cause so far. Its other two functions are helping patients and their families battling cancer as well as supporting junior golf continue to be a focus also.
"If [Maddox] was still with us," Davey Potter said, "this is where he'd be."
Players in the tournament were given gift bags, the yellow ribbon-shaped pins, T-shirts and ball markers bearing the new name and logo of the Maddox Potter Capital City Classic.
The individual winner, Hurricane's Isaac Hayes, found purpose in competing in the tournament.
"It means a lot that we get to be out here and play every day," said Hayes, a sophomore. "I played with Maddox a couple of times, so I know what he went through. It's rough."
