In a few minutes they would start the kind of tribute the late King Oehmig surely would have blessed. Exactly 51 weeks from the day he left us, 116 of his closest friends and admirers gathered at Black Creek Club on Monday to honor Oehmig with a golf tournament to benefit Metropolitan Ministries.
But because that many golfers can easily stretch a four-hour round to five or six, a last-second request was made of the large group just before they drove their golf carts to separate tee boxes for the shotgun start.
"In honor of King," the announcement began, "let's keep this thing moving. King loved fast play."
How could he not? It's tough enough being a doting husband and father while managing any full-time job. But then Oehmig insisted on becoming an Episcopal priest, the Baylor School golf coach, a tireless advocate for those less fortunate, especially those served by MetMin and the Community Kitchen.
The only way he could possibly hope to do justice to all those passions was to move swiftly and with great purpose.
"We all knew it was high on his list," lifelong friend Doug Stein said of Oehmig's commitment to MetMin: "But he didn't talk about it. He just did it."
Always. Whenever he felt someone was in need.
Or as longtime friend and fellow Episcopal priest Corky Carlisle noted at Oehmig's funeral last May: "King was more intuitive about human beings than anyone I've ever met. He could smell hurt, and he wouldn't rest until he made it better."
And despite the upper-crust feel of Black Creek, those gathered at the private club before the tournament were every bit the diverse crew you might have expected the mercurial Oehmig to embrace. Everyone from women in Goth attire and matching jet black hair to guys in Vineyard Vines shirts and shorts. A parking lot dotted with both pickups and Porsches. Young and old. Rich and not so rich.
"Being in a lot of different cultural situations gave King pause and helped him appreciate how blessed he was," said George Young III, the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of East Tennessee. "He was really drawn to the less fortunate."
Miller Blain has worked at Metropolitan Ministries for the past five years. She long marveled at Oehmig's ability to brighten the days of the thousands of "clients" the charity helps each year.
"He was just an awesome presence," she said. "Our clients are often very stressed. When King came in a room, everybody could breathe. We didn't talk much, but he had a big heart for the worn down. He had a way of making them all feel special."
There are more of them in need of special help than ever before descending daily on MetMin's headquarters at the corner of Spruce and McCallie Avenue (directly across from the entrance to Warner Park).
"We try to stop homelessness before it happens," said the charity's Rebecca Whelchel. "We pay their rent bills, their light bills, their food bills. We try to put out the financial fire, then drench them with support services."
Whelchel estimates MetMin can meet with 33 clients a day. They saw more than 7,000 such clients over the course of 2015.
Looking out over the largely prosperous crowd gathered for the King Oehmig Memorial Metropolitan Ministries Golf Tournament, she said, "We see the other side of Chattanooga. And the more we serve, the more who come."
A surprise to some may be that at least a few of those who come look remarkably like many of the golfers gathered at Black Creek who helped raise $75,000 of MetMin's annual budget of $629,145.
"A lot of middle-aged, predominantly white men who were clobbered in the recession," Whelchel said. "They still haven't recovered. It's rough out there."
Oehmig's passing is still emotionally rough on those who were closest to him.
Though Stein briefly chuckled over the memory of his friend's love of sweater vests regardless of the weather - "It could be sweltering out there, middle of summer, and King would still have a sweater vest on," he said - he also winced as he recalled Sunday morning at the Church of the Good Shepherd, where Oehmig's 5-month-old granddaughter Laura Matilda Oehmig was baptized.
"I kept thinking, 'It's hard to do this with King not here,'" he said.
Chris Moore roomed with Oehmig at Virginia. For 14 years, a group of UVa grads, including those two, met every Friday morning to discuss books they'd read.
Fifty-one weeks later, Moore said of the gatherings since their friend passed, "It's been brutal. We pretty much talk about him every week."
Yet there were far more smiles than frowns Monday. Oehmig's widow, Margy, and sons John and Henry (Laura Matilda's dad) hugged friends, grinned often and uniformly surmised that the autumn-like day was something King would have loved.
Suzanne Barels, who once took a Bible class from Oehmig, recalled that he was "a wonderful combination of someone very, very spiritual with a great sense of humor."
Added Baylor School headmaster Scott Wilson as he sought to frame Oehmig's immense impact beyond the 21 boys' and girls' state golf championships his Red Raiders won over a dozen dominating seasons: "His sphere of influence reached a long way."
It did indeed. Or to be more accurate, it does indeed. Both throughout his too-short life and blessedly, as we learned again on Monday, beyond his too-soon death.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.