If soldiers can’t come home to play golf, why not send home to the soldiers?
That’s the Pinewild plan.
Nancy and Carl Anders of Pinewild have a son in Iraq. Their son, Capt. Mark Anders, is a field artillery officer with the 4th Infantry Division near Baghdad. He told his parents that a lot of soldiers miss the game. He said he wished that they could have a few clubs and some balls to knock around.
That was all it took for his mother.
“I suggested Pinewild Country Club might want to be involved,” she said. “Lydia Boesch heard about it, and took on the coordination of the project.”
Boesch and her husband, John, started calling around, asking if anybody wanted to donate golf clubs, or golf balls or bags, anything they thought a soldier might find useful.
“We were just going to send enough for them to have a sort of driving range to start with,” said John Boesch. “It wasn’t my idea. I was on the sidelines. My wife is a very energetic lady, on the advisory board of Pinewild golf club. I think Nancy and Mark heard something about ClubCorp sending something to Iraq. That may be the genesis of this whole thing.”
Neighbor called neighbor. It became a Pinewild project.
“We had a number of meetings here at the house, various people with experience with the military and what have you,” John Boesch recalled. “Lydia was probably the engine driving, doing a logo, creating a flyer. Last Wednesday night, we had a club night and people were invited to drop off things that might be useful to the 4th ID in setting up a driving range.”
Boesch was stunned by what he saw when he got to the clubhouse.
There were heaps of clubs and bags. Every type of golf equipment imaginable covered the floor and leaned against the wall.
“Ever see a ball of red wiggler worms in a fisherman’s can?” Boesch asked. “That’s what it was like. It was so packed. When I walked into the room, it was shoulder height and probably 10 or 12 feet from the wall. I came back the next morning with Carl. We pulled it apart to see what we had.”
The inventory resulted in a staggering total. They had 1,118 golf clubs — drivers, irons, putters, pitching and sand wedges, offset and blades. There were about 9,000 balls. They had four dozen golf bags.
More than a driving range was going to Baghdad. One man contributed enough Astroturf to make greens for a par-3 course.
Boesch has a friend who works with FedEx. He offered to help arrange transport.
“It will be like a golf course in a box,” Boesch said. “We tried to provide whatever they might need for driving range and playable holes. Towels, tees — whatever they need — 7,000 balls and countless tees.”
There will be a range mat with rubber tees in two heights.
“We are shipping 16 complete golf bags, averaging 15 clubs per bag,” he said.
The 4th Infantry Division will receive a dozen regulation golf bags, two more for lady golfers, and two more for left-handers. They will get 20 pairs of shoes. For greens, there are nine cups, poles, Pinewild flags and a cup cutter.
When news of the shipment reached Iraq, it was Anders’ turn to be stunned.
“Thanks for the support and helping to get all of this together,” he wrote. “It means a lot. While we are getting close to redeployment, the clubs and gear will stay here for the next units. The guys can’t believe all the equipment you were able to round up. Good stuff.”
In fact, donors were so generous that there is a lot left over for other Sandhills charities.
Boesch will see that Junior Golf gets 17 complete sets, with bags, 98 individual cavity-back numbered irons, 33 similar pitching wedges, 28 sand wedges and 43 offset and blade putters.
First Tee, or other such programs, will receive 10 full sets, with bags. They include irons, sand wedges, putters, and pitching and lob wedges.
“We will donate whatever we have left to something like the Habitat store,” Boesch said.
Left over so far, for donation (perhaps to the Habitat store) are 39 golf bags, 85 assorted metal woods, 99 assorted wooden woods, 22 ball retrievers, four hand carts…
And 2,000 more balls.
