ST. GEORGE — Playing 50 golf courses in 50 different states in 25 days means there’s no time to dawdle.
The charity golf event “Rounds Fore Warriors” hurried through a morning round at Sunbrook Golf Course Thursday as part of the national event that is raising money for veterans and their families.
“They showed up early, teed off and got it done in a hurry,” said Sunbrook pro Reed MacArthur. “It’s neat what they’re doing and it’s nice to be a part of what they’re doing. Anytime we can help the veterans, we love it. The course is in great shape right now.”
The foursome of Bob Nicoll, Allen Wakefield, Joey Weidenhammer, and John Weiss began the day with the National Anthem and a recording of Taps, then hit the Sunbrook links at 7 a.m. Each of the four had their own golf carts and they played a four-man scramble format.
“We shot a 67 and that’s with a double-bogey and a bogey,” Nicoll said. “We chipped in on the last hole for eagle, so that helped.”
Nicoll and his playing partners began their aggressive journey, which will include 15,000 miles of travel, and more than 350,000 yards of golf, on Sunday in Hawaii, kicking off the event at the Ko’olau Golf Course on the north shore of Oahu. After Thursday’s round in St. George, the four golfers, along with their support team, jumped in their vehicles and headed for Flagstaff, Ariz., for a 3 p.m. tee time.
“Everyone has been very supportive,” Nicoll said. “The first thing that the people at the different courses would say to us when we told them about this very ambitious project, after we acknowledge that we are, in fact, crazy, is ‘How can we help?’ Just about everyone we talked to loved what we were doing.”
The event, which has several corporate sponsors, including ASEA rejuvenating solution, is raising money for two main charities: Rounds Fore Warriors and Special Operations Warrior Foundation, which cares for families of Special Ops soldiers who have been killed in action.
“The most important thing we want people to know is that 100 percent of all donations go to those two charities,” ASEA’s Tricia Olson said. “If you go to this website, www.roundsforewarriors.com, you can make donations or pledges and every bit of that money goes to veterans and their families.”
Nicoll said the event could get pretty frantic over the next few weeks, especially if the group has to deal with weather issues.
“It started out as a conversation between Allen (Wakefield) and John (Weiss) and was going to be a 50-day trek,” Nicoll said. “But Allen couldn’t get that much time off of work, so we said, ‘Hey, why not make it a 25-day event?’ One of my favorite numbers from all this is 354,821 — that’s the number of yards we will have golfed by the time we sink that last putt in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. That’s 196 1/2 miles of golf.”
After Hawaii, the event stopped at Moose-Run Creek in Anchorage, Alaska, then traveled through the Northwest before descending to Utah, Arizona and New Mexico. The journey continues through June as the golfers hit the Southwest, the Bible Belt, and the Southeast. After a trip through the Northeast, which includes a stop at the Naval Academy Course in Maryland and the West Point Course in New York, they circle around through the country’s midsection and the Great Lakes area, concluding with the Dakotas, Wyoming, Montana and finally the Coeur d’Alene Golf Course in northern Idaho.
“John is a Coast Guard veteran and Allen is US Navy, retired, and Joe is a US Army vet,” Nicoll said. “I’m not a veteran, but I love veterans and wanted to do something to help. And we all love golf. Are we crazy? Yes, we are. But we love our country and we love golf and we wanted to do something special.”
Cleveland/Srixon is providing the team with world class equipment to play the 50 rounds.
To donate or to follow the “Rounds Fore Warriors” journey, got to their website by clicking here. The event also has a Facebook page, Twitter account and Instagram presence.
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