Sometime around 1:30 p.m. on Friday, December 14,2012, I
stepped outside of PJ Clark’s, a saloon on 3rd Avenue in Manhattan.
Twenty four hours earlier the PGA of America had announced that Tom Watson
would be the Captain of the 2014 Ryder Cup team. It had been a whirlwind couple
of days in New York City. NBC’s Today Show, the Empire State Building press conference,
and a Knicks game at Madison Square Garden plus numerous interviews and press
conferences created a week that I will
never forget.
But, on the street corner that Friday afternoon at one of
Sinatra’s hangouts, it all seemed like a blip in the past when I checked my
Blackberry and saw reports that a mass shooting had taken place at the Sandy
Hook Elementary School about an hour north in Newtown, CT. Four events of tragic
magnitude stand out in my 59 years. The Kennedy assassination, the Columbine shootings,
9/11 and the Sandy Hook Elementary carnage are permanently etched in my memory
bank.
Last Sunday, I went to Newtown to be part of a day that
honored the first responders at the Sandy Hook Elementary School. I joined
Michael Breed, of Golf Channel’s “The Fix,” and participated in a golf outing
hosted by Paul Miller, PGA professional at the 9-hole Newton Country Club.
Sixty-eight players, most of them policemen, fire fighters and ambulance
personnel, comprised the field.
“When you drive into Newtown, you will go about 8 mph and
you will say to yourself, ‘How could something that awful happen in this
town?’” Breed told me last week.
Newtown is charming and located in Fairfield County. It was
founded in 1705 and is set in rural Connecticut. Its population is 28,000 and
it contains several small boroughs- one of which is Sandy
Hook. Newtown is truly Anytown, USA. Breed was right. It is unthinkable that
this tragedy, which resulted in 32 deaths on December 14, 2012, could happen
here.
Shortly after 9:30 a.m. on that fateful day, Adam Lanza shot
his way through the locked glass doors at Sandy Hook and went on a shooting
rampage that killed 26 children, ages 6-12 and six adults. Lanza shot all of
his victims multiple times, including 6-year old Noah Ponzer, who he shot
eleven times. Lanza later shot himself in the head when the first responders
entered the school.
The courageous stories of the six murdered adults along with
others inside the school, all primarily women, are well documented. Who knows
how many lives were saved by their heroic efforts. My trip to Newtown only
solidified my belief that this tragic story could have happened anywhere in our
country. It’s a typical American town with people like you and me living in it.
According to Breed who lives about 30 minutes away in
downstate Connecticut, the scene at Sandy Hook was so bad when the first seven
responders arrived that they called into the Newtown police department and
advised that no one else enter. To this day, those first seven responders have
not returned to work.
Paul Miller has been the golf professional at Newtown CC for
19 years. The club was built in 1915. Like many small town private clubs it has
fallen on hard times the last few years as its membership has declined from 270
to 187. Dan Baker works for the PGA of America and he described Newtown CC.
“I grew up there and was a junior member at Newtown CC. Joe
Lacava, Tiger’s caddie, and I both played there. NCC’s greens are as big as car
hoods which is why I generally hit it at the flag because if you were 20 feet
right or left you were off the green,” said Baker.
“NCC, back in the day, was jokingly referred to as a bar
with a golf course attached to it. The kind of place where golf was always fun.
I wish I could be there today. Great memories!” recalled Baker.
On Sunday, Paul Miller and his members put the fun back into
NCC. They created a day that quietly said thanks to all those first responders
and area agencies that had been so instrumental in the events of 12/14/12. The
club has offered complimentary memberships to any of the families affected by
the tragedy at Sandy Hook. Three of those have taken NCC up on its offer and
Miller will be giving lessons to a mom and dad of a Sandy Hook victim on
Friday.
Miller, along with the help of Breed, created a raffle where
every participant in Sunday’s outing received a prize. The donors were golfs
greats- Woods, Palmer, Norman, Player, Nicklaus, Pavin, Stockton along with
many of golf’s top manufacturers. The best surprise of the day was when Allen
Newman, with the JetBlue Challenge, announced that all 68 participants in the
outing would receive a free 5 day/ 4 night vacation to Casa De Campo.
Golf Digest and the Golf Channel covered the day on Sunday,
but Miller and his NCC membership had refrained from any pre-outing publicity
as they did not want to turn the day into a media circus out of respect for the
first responders. Breed conducted a clinic and around Noon on Sunday, nearly
3,000 motorcyclists roared into Newtown. They had paid $2 each to be a part of
the ride for Sandy Hook’s responders.
It was eerie. You could hear the sirens accompanying the
roar of the motorcycles while Breed was
finishing up his clinic. I thought to myself, sirens can never sound the same
in Newtown. It has to be a constant reminder, a daily torture.
Main Street in Newtown houses the Police Department and the
Newtown Ambulance service. These were recognizable images from the national
news stories back in December. Dickinson Road, the site of Sandy Hook Elementary
is coned off prohibiting any kind of traffic near the school. It’s probably
better that the painful reminder of that day be sealed off, but looking down
that road past the cones still congers up sadness. The Trinity Church where so
many of the memorial services were conducted stood tall and proud against the
Connecticut horizon.
Sunday was a day of celebration .It was calm with a clear
blue sky. Newtown was peaceful and almost surreal. Miller and his members at
NCC managed to do the impossible. They made people forget the horrors of this
small town, if only for a day. People laughed, the libations flowed, a few
tears were shed but all in all- it was golf helping heal people’s lives. It was
a great day in Newtown, truly Anytown, USA.
Thanks for the insight on this incredible tragedy and the effort that golf is making on easing some of the pain this community is going through. As always, well written and insightful.
ReplyDeleteWow! Awesome story Ted. Thank you for sharing.
ReplyDelete