Some traditions are carefully planned. Others begin with a softball team, a golf weekend, a $20 bill, and one ugly yellow sport coat.
For the men behind the Yellow Jacket Classic, it was never about the Jacket. It was never just about golf, either. It was about friendship, humor, shared history and the kind of connection that grows when people show up year after year.
The Roots of the Yellow Jacket Classic were planted in Fort Collins. A group of men first met playing recreational softball. They came from different places and backgrounds but found common ground in a shared sense of humor, an ability to laugh at themselves, and a willingness not to take life too seriously.
That chemistry became the foundation.
“We all kind of came from different places,” Rick Hontz, an early and distinguished member of the YJC, said. “Philly, New York, California, Milwaukee, Colorado. But we all had the same sense of humor. That was the core of the whole thing.”
The original connection started on the softball field, but it quickly moved beyond the game. They became friends who gathered after games, knew each other’s families, supported each other through life events, and built a community that didn’t disappear when the season ended.
The team met through the Fort Collins Recreation adult softball league. Many lived near each other, worked in the same circles or were recruited by someone else. Neighborhood, business, and friendship connections overlapped until an unlikely group of teammates became something lasting.
“There would be no Yellow Jacket without Fort Collins,” said Jerry Touslee, founder and “Commissioner” of the YJ.
The golf tradition began in 2014, when Touslee moved from Fort Collins to Colorado’s Western Slope and bought a home on a golf course in New Castle. He was not necessarily an avid golfer, but the setting gave him an idea. He invited a handful of softball friends over for golf. Six said yes. With the host included, they needed one more player, so a New Castle neighbor named Chris joined in. That group became known as the “original Eight.”
Before they left for the course, Touslee handed his wife $20 and asked her to stop by a thrift store. The request was simple: find the ugliest, most obnoxious sport coat she could.
She came back with exactly that: a banana-yellow, late-80s or early-90s Jacket that looked like it had wandered out of Miami Vice and into a golf tournament by accident. It was perfect.
That evening, the Jacket was awarded for the first time. The men laughed, loved it, and decided to do it again the following year.
And just like that, the Yellow Jacket Classic was born.
What started as a weekend among friends has grown into a 13-year tradition. The group expanded from eight to twelve, and later thirteen, but remained intentionally small. Over the years, people have asked how they can join, but the group is protective of what it has built.
“It’s not that anyone is a bad person,” Hontz explained. “It’s that chemistry is so important for the entire weekend.”
That chemistry is what made the Yellow Jacket Classic far more than golf. The group rents houses or cabins, travels together, plays a Friday warm-up round, and holds the official tournament on Saturday. The competition is real, but so is the silliness. They play a two-person scramble, but the rules include challenges designed to keep everyone grounded.
In the seventh year, players had to use a seven-iron on Hole 7 for everything, including putting. Another year, landing in a sand trap meant making a sand angel. There are longest-drive and closest-to-the-pin contests, but also YJC-specific challenges like sending a photo in the group text of your foursome, spelling out the YJC year number. The purpose is not just to win, but to remember the weekend is supposed to be fun.
“It reminds you not to take yourself too seriously,” Hontz said. “We’re competitive, but then you’re doing a sand angel, and you remember, okay, this is a fun weekend.”
The Yellow Jacket has become the group’s traveling trophy. Each champion signs the inside with his name and year. The winner keeps the Jacket for the year and is expected to document its adventures.
And the Jacket has traveled.
It has been snowboarding, deep-sea fishing, and skydiving. It has been to St. Andrews in Scotland, Dublin for St. Patrick’s Day, and the Blarney Stone. It has appeared in a teacher’s school photo and in places no one imagined when it first came home from the thrift store. It has even collected celebrity signatures, including Alice Cooper.
Those stories are part of the tradition. On Friday night, before the tournament, the group creates what they call an altar for the Jacket. The Jacket is hung in a place of honor, and each man presents an offering for good luck before the next day’s round.
Some offerings are funny. Some are ridiculous. Some are deeply personal.
One member brought his mother’s ashes after she passed away. Another brought something meaningful after losing his daughter. Grief, memories, and laughter have all found their way into the room. The moment can shift from jokes to tears and back again, which may be exactly why it matters.
The Yellow Jacket Classic gives the group a reason to gather and a way to carry each other through life. Over the years, they have celebrated weddings, milestones, victories and new beginnings, while also showing up for one another through memorials, divorces, losses and difficult seasons. They may not all be best friends in the traditional sense, but they are connected by a bond that has carried them through the fun and fragile parts of life.
Everyone has families. Everyone has jobs. Everyone has responsibilities. Yet once a year, this group makes room for friendship.
“There are a lot of stories,” Touslee said. “But most of all, we have this story that we all share, and it just builds and becomes more meaningful.”
That may be the heart of the Yellow Jacket Classic. It is a reminder that exploring life does not always require a plane ticket or a faraway destination. Sometimes exploration begins with trying a new team, saying yes to an invitation, playing when you are not the best golfer, or finding the people who make life feel lighter.
The Yellow Jacket men have gone from softball to golf trips, from Fort Collins fields to courses across Colorado and beyond. They have created memorable traditions, inside jokes, a bourbon club, offshoot golf tournaments, and more stories than anyone can retell. But the real adventure is not the sport, the location, nor even the Jacket.
The real adventure is friendship.
It is the rare kind of friendship that makes space for one more story. It is built on a simple but meaningful idea: find your people, embrace the experiences, and do not wait too long to start.
When asked to sum up YJC, the answers came easily.
Fun. Experiences. Relationships.
And perhaps the truest one of all:
Brothers.
“There would be no Yellow Jacket without Fort Collins. This city gave us the friendships, memories and tradition that started it all.”
- Jerry Touslee