Truly putting the ‘fun’ in fundraising

By Gary Larrabee

Gary Larrabee

Before you start reading my first North Shore Golf & Tennis column for 2010, turn back a couple of pages and look at one of the best reasons we are in love with this often baffling – and mesmerizing – game. It is called fundraising for worthy causes. No game or sport on earth raises more money for charitable endeavors than golf, thanks to generous blokes like you, the golfer/golf fan.

We love playing golf, especially when it is for charity, the economic downturn be damned. More than 3000 charity events are held in New England on an annual basis. Locally, we have listed nearly 30 such events for 2010 in our initial issue alone. The granddaddy of them all is the Mike Frangos Commodore Open, inaugurated in 1970, which has raised more than $1 million as an annual one-day fundraiser for the Danvers-based Northeast Arc.

The PGA Tour raised $108 million for hundreds of charities in a recession-ravaged 2009. The PGA Tour has donated nearly $1.5 billion for charities over the years. Golfers are bombarded with worthy cause pitches every day of the year in every communicative form, including the workplace.

We keep on playing and keep on giving. Our local private clubs have jumped into the mix with annual one-day community/alumni tournaments that benefit scholarship programs. Salem Country Club hosts its 15th annual Peabody Day on May 24 benefiting the Joseph O’Boyle Scholarship Fund and worthy seniors at Peabody and Bishop Fenwick High Schools. The program has awarded nearly $150,000 in scholarships in its short lifetime.

“As members of private clubs,” says George Anderson, who just completed his tenure as Salem CC chairman of Peabody Day, “we have a responsibility to give back to the game and to the community where we have our fun. This is a great way to do it.”

Another example is the annual Kernwood CC Alumni Scholarship event that provides scholarships to employees such as caddies, grounds and clubhouse staff, as well as children of employees. The Kernwood program has been held since its 75th anniversary season in 1989 and has raised more than $600,000 benefiting close to 1000 recipients through 2009. The club also in recent years has ranked as high as ninth nationally and second in Massachusetts among private country clubs for raising the most money during a three-day event for the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation for breast cancer research. The club raised in excess of $60,000 in 2009.

Another angle to this remarkable fundraising engine we have in the region is the weekday outings hosted by our area courses, private and public. Some are merely social or memorial events, but many others collectively raise anywhere from $500,000 to $1 million a year for a wide range of good causes. Just look again at pages 36 and 37 in this issue. The one-day outing is also an important revenue producer for the courses. Talk about a win-win package.

On a grander scale, we salute several of our local golfers and prominent surgeons who have spent time in Haiti providing medical care to victims of that horrific earthquake. The list includes Turner Hill’s Brian McKeon, Vesper’s Paul Burke and Beverly Hospital’s Hank Frissora. McKeon and Frissora were part of a Greater Boston medical team organized and funded by Turner Hill’s Sam Byrne.

The support that the local golf community, individuals and businesses alike, delivers to an array of charitable initiatives is breathtaking. Top it all off with the millions of dollars raised annually by our favorite statewide golf charity, the Francis Ouimet Scholarship Fund, and we golfers can stand ten feet tall. So have a blast chasing the little white pellet this season. Keep giving to the charities, golf-related and otherwise, of your choice, and count your blessings for the amazing golf community of which we are a part here on the North Shore.

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This is another big year for tournament golf on the North Shore, starting with the Massachusetts Golf Association’s Four-Ball Championship May 10-11 at Ipswich Country Club and Turner Hill. This is the perfect tandem arrangement between two of our top-notch venues, Ipswich, a Robert Trent Jones Sr. challenge, and Turner Hill, a more modernist layout from the inestimable Dana Fry.

Myopia hosts the MGA’s annual Amateur championship July 12-16, where Bradford CC course record holder and new daddy Bill Drohen defends the title he won last year at The Country Club. The entire field will be determined at 12 local qualifying sites.

Sandwiched in between will be the 36th Curtis Cup Match at Essex County Club June 11-13, pitting the top women amateurs from the United States against the best from Great Britain and Ireland. Tickets at $75 for the three days and $30 daily are available at the club on School Street, just off Route 128 North.

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Gary Larrabee, the author of The Green and Gold Coast: The History of Golf on Boston's North Shore, 1893-2001, has been covering the North Shore/Greater Boston golf scene for 40 years. He has written centennial histories for Salem, Winchester and Wenham Country Clubs. Catch his golf segment every Saturday morning on the North Shore Sports Desk (104.9 FM) from 8 to 9 a.m.