Happy Valley High and Middle School Golf Coach Gene Renfro was recently recognized by the Tri-Cities PGA as their 2025 Person of the Year.
The award is given to a non-PGA member who has helped elevate golf in the area and the voting board felt like that was Coach Renfro for this year. In addition to being the head coach for both Happy Valley High and Middle School teams, he serves on the TMSGA Advisory Board, created the 1913 Invitational which has brought programs from across the state to the Johnson City Country Club every July. He has also volunteered with the local Drive, Chip, and Putt qualifying events.
“I am honored that the professionals in this area thought enough of the efforts put forth to present this honor,” Renfro said. “This might be an individual award, but, it is a Happy Valley community effort to build our golf program and help do the other things to build the game in the area.”
He has been at the helm of the Happy Valley programs since 2021 where there have been eight individual region appearances. In addition, a District 1-A runner-up for the Happy Valley High girls team in 2024 after a third-place performance the year before. Those two teams also placed fourth in the Region 1-A Championship.
The program has produced three Carter County Golfers of the Year (Cayden Anderson 2024, Grace Hollifield & Colton Pemberton 2023) along with six All District 1-A honors and one All-Region 1-A player (Anderson).
Happy Valley High had four straight years of girls golf being a TSSAA Distinguished Scholastic Award with a team GPA of over 3.25 while the boys’ program has four years of either a TSSAA Distinguished or Outstanding Scholastic honor with team GPA of over 3.0.
He has been a TMSGA Advisory Board member for the last nine seasons where he helps organize the E4 South District meeting and tournaments. The TMSGA has presented Renfro with Region Coach of the Year honors in 2019 and 2025. Renfro has also been selected to serve on the newly formed Tennessee High School Golf Coaches Association board.
The creation of the 1913 Invitational has helped bring some of the top high school players and teams in the state to the Johnson City Country Club with roughly 20-25 percent of the field in the last three seasons reaching their respective TSSAA State Championship. The field has included SEC signees with other NCAA Division I, II, NAIA, and junior college signees in a field that is talked about statewide.
Before returning to his alma mater, Renfro served as head coach for Unicoi County High and Middle School teams from 2017 to 2020. His first coaching stent was at Church Hill Middle School for the 2016 and 2017 seasons along with assistant coach duties at Volunteer High in 2016.
