David Ingram, Mike Nixon to be inducted into the Tennessee Golf Hall of Fame in May

“We are pleased to have two tremendous gentlemen of the game make up the 2025 inductee class of the Tennessee Golf Hall of Fame,” said Whit Turnbow, President of the Tennessee Golf Foundation. “David and Mike have both left, in their own way, an indelible mark on golf in Tennessee, and we look forward to honoring those accomplishments this spring.”

DAVID INGRAM Ingram, a Nashville native, has long been a staunch supporter of golf-related initiatives in Tennessee. He is the current president of The Golf Club of Tennessee, which was established in 1989 by his late father E. Bronson Ingram II and Toby Wilt, and is regarded as one of the premier courses in the country. David has continued the family legacy 35 years later with the recent addition of a second golf course at GCTN designed by noteworthy architect Gil Hanse. Since its inception, The Golf Club of Tennessee has hosted countless Tennessee Golf Foundation events and fundraisers – most notable was The Vinny Pro-Am, which was hosted by Country Music Hall of Fame and Tennessee Golf Hall of Fame member Vince Gill, and ran for 27 years while raising over $8 million for junior golf initiatives in Tennessee. With Ingram’s leadership and advocacy,The Golf Club of Tennessee has opened its doors to many junior and amateur golf events, such as Sneds Tour Tournament of Champions, Drive, Chip and Putt qualifying, NCAA Regional Championships, Dick’s SEC-ACC Challenge, and the 2018 U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship. Ingram is a generous financial supporter of the Tennessee Golf Foundation and helped to establish the TGF endowment in 1990. He sat as Chair of the TGF Investment Committee through 2019. Ingram was the Chairman and President of Ingram Entertainment, the largest domestic distributor of DVDs, from 1996-2024. He was the founder and Chairman of DBI Beverage until it sold to Reyes Holdings in 2019. This sale was considered one of the largest single distributor acquisitions of its time. He serves as a current board member of Pinnacle Financial Partners and the Vanderbilt Board of Trust. He is a former Chairman of Montgomery Bell Academy Board of Trustees. He is currently the founder/CEO of DBI NEXT LLC. Ingram is married to Sarah LeBrun Ingram. Sarah is a 1999 inductee of the Tennessee Golf Hall of Fame. She is a three-time U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur Champion (1991, 1993, and 1994) and played on three Curtis Cup teams while captaining two more.David was a standout collegiate and amateur golfer, and he and Sarah met while they were members of the Duke University men’s and women’s golf teams, respectively. David and Sarah have two sons, Henry (married to Yi Jiang) and Bronson.

MIKE NIXON Mike Nixon of Nashville has a long, distinguished career, both as a competitor and as an industry professional. Nixon has the rare distinction of being the first, and currently only one of two, golfers who have competed in the U.S. Junior, the U.S Amateur, the U.S. Mid-Amateur, the U.S. Pub-Links, and the U.S. Senior Amateur. He completed this feat over the span of 52 years, attesting to the longevity of his superb playing ability. He played in the U.S. Junior in 1963 and last qualified for the U.S. Senior Amateur in 2015. He also competed in the 2012 U.S. Senior Open and has qualified for a total of 17 USGA, R&A, and Canadian national championships. Nixon graduated from Memphis State University and turned professional in 1972. He played on the European Tour in 1975 and twice made it onto the PGA Tour (1975-77, 1981-82). Nixon was also a National Long Drive champion in 1976 and won over 25 local, state, and regional professional events over the next decade, before settling into a career as a real estate developer in 1983. Nixon won the Tennessee PGA Professional Championship in 1980 and 1981 and the Tennessee Super Senior State Open in 2017. He eventually regained his amateur status and has had a very successful run in state amateur events. He has won every Super Senior title the Tennessee Golf Association offers, including the 2014, 2020, and 2021 Super Senior Four-Ball, the 2015 and 2023 Super Senior Amateur, and the 2020 Super Senior Match Play. He also won the SOS National SSR Championship in 2015 and was ranked in Golfweek’s Top Ten Senior Amateurs from 2003-2005. He was also the top ranked player over the age of 65 in the World Amateur Golf Rankings (WAGR) in 2015-16. From 2011-2022, Nixon held the title of Director of Golf Operations for the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation and Tennessee State Parks, which tasked him with overseeing the nine state park golf courses. During his tenure, he returned the courses to profitability and spearheaded several significant improvements to the courses – most recently new greens at Henry Horton and Paris Landing. Under Nixon’s watch, one of the state park courses, Bear Trace at Harrison Bay, received the prestigious Golf Digest Green Star Award for its use of TVA Clean Energy Grants to switch all gas-powered equipment to electric. Another project saw all nine courses convert to electric greens mowers. Nixon was preceded in death by his first wife, Lisa Kennedy (1955-1998). He is now married to Melinda Waller Nixon, and they have three children – Jordan, Grace (married to Sammy), and Joe.